Raccoon City: Reimagined
by The Lady Frost
Summary: It all began in a necropolis. A rookie cop, a disgraced hero, a sister looking for answers - and the waiting dark filled with monsters. We think we know what waits for them - but we haven't even begun to imagine. (RE2/Outbreak/RE3 - timeline canon divergence to suit the nature of the story, new puzzles, new friendships - character deaths and deception.) (On Hold.)
1. Nightmare

**Raccoon City**

* * *

 **Raccoon City, Pennsylvania**

 **September 27, 2018 –**

 **2 days after Outbreak**

* * *

The wasteland continued to burn. The groaning filled the stifling air.

A chorus of corruption.

A symphony of death.

He'd never understand how it was possible for the world to be on fire while it wept in remorse. The rain beat down on the heads of the undead like tears from Heaven. He slipped in his own blood – leaving a hand print smeared over the door of the cruiser. Red, blue, red, blue – the myriad of colors swirled prettily across his face as he staggered.

Where were they? Had it worked? He was dying. He didn't need a doctor to tell him that. He was dying. How long did he have?

He was still faster than the dead that stalked him. His hand shifted off his stomach, watching the spill of bright red in the boiling shadows. He was going to join them soon enough. This wound? Mortal. He knew it. Even as he struggled to get some place and die with a little dignity. He knew it.

He looked out over the blistering black sky, watching the lightning streak and immortalize the face of the clock tower in the distance. He'd been a week late getting to this city. A week late to help during the outbreak. A week late to save a soul.

Serve and protect – it was written on the squad car he left behind him in the burning square. Had he? They were safe. Wherever they were? They were free of the nightmare. Surely. Surely he'd done, at least that. At least that.

At least.

His gloved hand slipped loosely over the handle for the door. RPD.

The last bastion of hope. Surely he'd find someone else alive inside. They were COPS. They were saviors. He couldn't be the only cop left alive in this necropolis. He couldn't.

Alive?

The door opened and spilled him uselessly the tiles inside. Cool, he thought desperately, as he crawled forward and kicked the door shut behind him – sealing out the dead that hungered for his flesh and blood. The air conditioning was still working because this building was cool as a cucumber.

And clean.

And **empty.**

Softly, he breathed, "Fuck…please no." His bloody fingers gripped the railing in the massive lobby. Beautiful. Tremendous. The article in Architectural Digest had hailed it as a MODERN DAY MASTERPIECE – AN HOMAGE TO GOTHIC REVIVALISM.

The fountain burbled happily in the center of the breathtaking foyer. He wanted to marvel at the magnificence of it all. But he slipped in the blood from his own belly and tumbled the two steps down from the platform to the slick tiles instead.

He was going to die in this beautiful lobby on his first day on the job.

The doors creaked. He rolled to his back and backed up against the amazing fountain. He raised his weapon as it burst open – and a woman came through, sweaty, filthy, and panicked.

She raised her gun on him and his arm, shaking so badly he could barely keep it aloft, dropped his own pistol to his lap. The world shimmered gray and black. Gray and red. Gray and dark. He whispered, "…don't shoot…I'm a human."

Although he wasn't sure for how much longer. He slipped into the darkness staring at the end of her barrel – and wondering if it would be mercy for her to just put him down.

How else would he ever escape this nightmare?

Two days ago - he'd stepped out of his door and into the world of survival horror.

He was ready, so ready, for it to just be...game over.

He wasn't even afraid any more as he went to the floor in a pool of his own blood.


	2. In the Beginning

**Raccoon City**

* * *

 **Raccoon City, Pennsylvania**

 **June 15th, 2018 –**

 **3 months prior to Outbreak**

* * *

From the floating hologram high above the bustling metropolis, the energetic voice piped it's product into the humid air. British, exciting, and filled with encouragement, the voice promised all the things the viewer witnessed in the healthy, attractive, beautifully convincing faces that passed against the cloudless sky. Walking billboards, it seemed, selling things you couldn't live without.

Umbrella Pharmaceuticals - Selling Life. The voice, happily promoting things to improve yours, "Obedience Breeds Discipline, Discipline Breeds Unity, Unity Breeds Power, Power is Life". The beautiful woman grinned and tossed her pretty blonde hair, "Our Business is Life Itself."

Selling Power. Selling the Future. Selling the Lies.

Beneath the towering Goliath of the RPD station, the meeting in progress seemed so mediocre in the face of such power. The first in a series of interviews had been conducted via Facetime. Formalities, really, for what would come next. The rookie in the room with the most powerful men in the business was a shoe in. They all knew it.

They all sat in agreement.

Leon Scott Kennedy was the first of a series of new recruits to join the Raccoon City Police Departments: Cure the Crime Wave, Clean up the City! initiative. They toasted his appointment...and sealed his fate.

* * *

The bar at the corner of Hyde Avenue and Jekyll Joke Road wasn't the first of its kind. The brother to J's Bar, K's Kitchen, was in Wombat Junction a few miles down the road. Raccoon City herself was a by product of what natives in the area affectionately, and rudely, often referred to as: Four Critters Corner. It encompassed the four big cities that made up the "burg."

Wombat Junction, Possum Pass, Raccoon City, and Chipmunk Crossing were all moderately sized cities equivalent to something like Topeka, Kansas - census wise. Nothing special. Nothing crazy. Just some drugs, some gun violence, some domestic disputes - the occasional murder. Honestly, for a cop from Pittsburgh used to the teeming streets of metropolis madness, the whole thing felt a bit like a Disney movie. He kept waiting for talking dogs and singing mermaids to pop out of their cartoonist caves and shells to offer him his lifes story in B-Flat.

After helping clean up in the academy from things as bad as back street abortions and mass murder, he was looking forward to the simplicity of suburban crime. He could go the rest of his life without ever having to break outside the box to help the poor and down trod. He wanted to help, he did, he believed wholeheartedly in the power of the shield and the need to serve and protect...he just didn't want to witness a baby half aborted by a close hanger stuffed up the destroyed insides of another cracked out whore for the rest of his life. Some things you just never forgot. Ever.

Raccoon City seemed quiet enough. Calm enough. Simple enough. The worst thing he'd likely find here was a few fist fights over a girl in a bar gone bad or a kid skipping class to get out of a math exam. Shit, Leon thought contemplatively, the sign leading into the city had a grinning foxed face little guy with those ringed eyes and that curly tail waving. Inviting. Come on in, said the happy faced critter, and stay awhile.

Hell, he'd seen Seven with Brad Pitt, he knew what assignments he could be out there finding himself in. This one was a GIFT. A big one. It got him away from the old man and his constant lecturing about "joining the family business"...as if Leon would EVER be happy as a carpenter that hand crafted furniture...no. Just...no. It wasn't the easiest conversation to have with Jessica. She was up in arms about the whole thing - convinced he was trying to get away from the Pitts to keep her from going to art school.

As if.

He hadn't the heart to tell her either...that her art was shit. She was a terrible painter. Her shit looked like a third grader got bored one afternoon and smeared colors together with their feet.

But such was the way of love, he supposed. If he wanted to make it work, they'd have to find a compromise in the middle. They'd been together since middle school, with the occasional break up to grow up, so it seemed stupid to tank ten years of dating because he wanted a fresh start. He only knew one thing: if he didn't get outta the Pitts and start over, he was going to die a beat cop in a busted ass city who moonlighted as a carpenter.

His guts curdled at the thought. He wasn't sure why, but something in his bones abhorred that idea. Sure, it was a good life. He'd make ok money. He and Jess could have a couple kids and settle down and be fine. But, again, he got the twitch at the back of his neck that said: _This isn't your life, kid. This isn't your future._ Was it here?

He glanced around the smokey bar, feeling the shiver of curiosity. Was his future here in Raccoon City? What was it about this place that called to him? Why did his bones tell him he BELONGED here?

He dropped a hand to rub the cleft in his chin thoughtfully. He had the grades, the IQ, the tenacity - he was top of his class, top of the line, a marksman, a free thinker. He'd passed with flying colors to the joy and tittering excitement of his superiors. He was aces. A great cop. A good kid in a pinch. Wet behind the ears, sure, but willing to go the distance. He wanted to be Chief of Police one day and maybe run for office after that.

Why not?

His fucking name was Kennedy - didn't that mean he should have some kind of power?

Not be a goddamn carpenter in a shitty little town with a lack luster life, a mediocre house, and a pretty wife whose greatest achievement was Homecoming Queen.

He paused, the beer halfway to his mouth. Wow.

He was a fucking asshole to boot.

The phone on the bar by his hand jingled. The text was Jessica, like she'd read his mind just now, a selfie of her at the Pittsburgh Instititute of Fine Art. It read: "Meeting with the Dean - Wish me luck! XoXo!" A fingers crossed emoji and a kissy face. Ugh.

UGH.

She even talked like that. That was the sad news. She was a text talker. The type of modern millenial that didn't just slang in the written form, they verbalized their use of acronyms and pointless time savers. "Oh, Leon," Jess would titter, "I gotta call Susie. She's toatz gonna dump Evan tonight. It's messy but I can't help but LOL. You know? Wait here. I'll BRB!"

He loved.

He just kept saying it as his IQ dropped by being in her presence. He loved her. Under the valley girl gone cheerleader spacey behavior, she was a good girl. Honest. Forthright. She'd been faithful to him for so long he felt like they were practically joined at the hip.

It was the right thing to stay with her and try to make it work. It was.

Down the bar a few stools, a voice queried, "Hey! Any chance you got a light?"

He turned his head and found the curious gaze of a redhead with big blue eyes. She had a smoke tucked between big lips and dark brows arched on a smooth forehead. The cowboy boots were brown, the cutoffs she wore were faded, and the tank top advertised the classic cool that was the Rolling Stones with the red lips and the tongue taunting those to judge it.

Her hair was sloppily tied back in a ponytail with a single braid looped above her ear and three earrings dancing up the lobe beside it. She looked young enough to suggest he was too old for her, rocker chic enough to let him know she wasn't his type, and in the companionship of a trio of other girls that were watching him like a pack of lions might a gazelle on the plains.

A curious thing for him, honestly, as he came from a town where everyone knew he and Jess were a thing - and no one bothered to look at him like that at all.

In a move that might have made Tom Cruise proud, Leon struck up the book of matches on the bar beside him and tossed it down the mahogany to the girl. It slid, lit like a bad ass, and she caught it in her hand. She had a tattoo up the inside of her forearm that looked like the symbol for Cancer.

Catching it, the girl flashed him a grin. "Cocky thing. What's your name?"

What was it that brought on this moment? Sheer stupidity maybe. Maybe it was knowing he was just a kid who'd landed his first job that had nothing to do with his Dad and the long arm of the Kennedy name to open doors for him. He'd gotten a beat cop position here, starting in September, on his own merit. His own.

It meant something.

Even if he didn't ever take it. Even if he turned it down to stay in the Pitts. Even if...he became the man his family wanted and ignored the feeling that he was meant for more.

Jessica sent another text: "U will luv the dorms here! We can room 2gether!"

He turned his head toward the girl and answered, "...Leon."

The phone buzzed again: "Artists make bank! U can be a stay at home DAD!"

He felt vaguely like he might throw up.

And the girl at the end of the bar said, "Hi, Leon...how do you feel about darts?"

It was the first time in weeks he didn't feel like he was in the wrong place at the wrong time.

He tilted his head, smiling at her a little. "Depends..."

"On?"

"How do you feel about losing?"

Her laughter tinkled musically around him. She offered him the cigarette and picked up his beer, "You shouldn't underestimate me, Leon. I'm better than the average bear."

"Oh, yeah?"

"Oh...yeah." She gripped the darts off the board, helping herself to the cigarette dangling between his lips. She turned while he sipped his beer, and looked at her ass in those cutoffs.

"...prove it."

Claire tilted her head, grinning widely. The other girls at the little table with them couldn't stop whispering. She leaned a little closer to him and said, conspiratorially, "I'm just down from college visiting my brother. These eager bitches over here think you're a piece of ass. I think you need to beat me to prove them wrong...but I have a problem with losing, Leon. I just don't like to do it."

"What do you say...I win, you buy me a drink?"

She tilted her head, "...fair enough. But if I win, you have to take off all your clothes and run naked down the street."

She was something else. But she clearly didn't know who she was challenging here. He shrugged.

"Hmm," He rose and took her cigarette again. He poked it between his lips, inhaled sharply on the bitter taste, and helped himself to a dart. Without looking at the board, with just looking at her, he chucked the little thing...and came within half an inch of the bullseye.

The giggling slowed down a little.

The girl looked at him with both brows lifted, "Oh...ok. Ok. This is good." She rolled her shoulders. She took the darts, cracking her neck. "This is gonna be a battle after all."

She helped herself to the cigarette, brushing her arm and shoulder against him. His fingers tingled, his lips twitched and he laughed. She tilted her head a little, looking at his mouth.

She was something else.

He'd never met a girl like her in his life.

Ever.

"Leon?" She looked a little sad. He glanced at her mouth.

"Hmm?"

"I'm so sorry."

"Why?"

The dart hit the bullseye. The second one took up a space right beside it. The third one joined the party. Boom-boom-boom.

Triple threat.

The girl sighed dramatically. "I'm so sorry. I just can't do it. I couldn't lose. I'm a winner. It's what I do."

She helped herself to his beer, polished it off, and shrugged. "Shame. I was hoping you'd beat me fair and square."

She waited, blinking. He was trying to figure out how to welsh on the bet here and she laughed instead. She patted his arms, winking at him. She all but danced away in those cowboy boots. "Don't worry, handsome, I'm gonna give you a pass...usually when I see something like you naked, I want us both to be that way."

Lord.

She paused with her girlfriends at the door. "...maybe we'll have a rematch one day, huh?"

He stared at her, a little dumbfounded, "Wait a minute...who are you!?"

She left the bar with a laugh.

He'd never met a girl like her in his entire life.

The cop sitting beside the dartboard gave him a look of sympathy. "...dude, you've just been Redfield..." He shook his head, "You're not baptized until she beats your ass at darts and leaves you with blue balls..."

At the bar, a harried looking fellow with urine blonde hair and dark skin chortled gleefully. His uniform said Jim. And he said, "Yeah...once she shoots you down...you officially a native..."

Leon kept staring at her where she'd been. "Who was that?"

Behind the bar, the owner let out a laugh, "Dude. That was Claire Redfield. Welcome to Raccoon City."


	3. Ground Zero

**Raccoon City**

* * *

 **Raccoon City, Pennsylvania**

 **September 26, 2018 –**

 **Ground Zero- Day 1**

* * *

The car streaked down the highway. It was racing. It was roaring. He was mercilessly LATE.

It wasn't a surprise. Really, it wasn't. He was mostly hung over, kinda still smelly, and wrinkled. It was his first day on the force – and he looked like a hobo.

But that wasn't the worst part.

The worst part was that Jessica had dumped him the night before, without warning, because some broad had posted pictures of him on Instagram shooting darts with Claire Redfield in that bar in Raccoon City MONTHS ago. Nothing had happened. Nothing. Not a damn thing.

But Jessica? Drama all over the place. And Leon? Captain of the Dump Town. Peaced out. Kicked to the curb. Finito.

He was going to find _#RedfieldRules_ and kick their ass. Whoever had the nerve, and he was betting it was one of those bitches who'd been running with Claire Redfield that night, to fuck with his universe was seriously damaging his reputation. He was now, amongst his home town, the guy who cheated on Jessica Sherawat – the homecoming queen.

His own MOTHER wasn't answering his texts now. It was degrading.

In lieu of sitting on his ass to feel sorry for himself, he'd taken his dumped ass out to the local watering hole the night before – gotten shit faced drunk- and taken home the first girl that had hit on him.

He'd fucked her the first time, without a condom like some fucking rookie dumb ass without a single functioning brain cell, behind the bar against the wall with his pants around his thighs. Pretty girl, in town for the races with some friends, headed to Raccoon City herself the next day for the parade.

What was her name?

Elsa…something. Elsa…Winters? Elsa…Walker?

He couldn't remember. She was just a space filler for Claire Redfield anway (cough). She was Claire version 1.5. Because he'd jerked off thinking of that ridiculous redhead so often since he'd met her, that his guilt over Jessica dumping him made him feel, literally, like a cheater. He wasn't.

Though he'd drunken monkey fucked Elsa …what's-her-face twice more before sunrise to teach Jessica a lesson anyway. The third time, he'd pictured Claire Redfield the whole time. That braid above her ear, all those earrings, her perfect white teeth. He'd grunted like a pig and pumped between that girls thighs and promptly covered her in sweat and cum like a filthy porno.

He'd woken up with his head THROBBING and the air conditioner broken in his cheap apartment. And worse? He was already two hours late for his first day.

TWO HOURS.

By the time he threw on his uniform and ran for the door, he was three hours late. The forty five minute drive to Raccoon was filled with self hatred. Dumped and now fired: the Leon Kennedy special.

If he'd been paying better attention, he might have noticed the utter lack of traffic rushing with him to the sprawling metropolis.

He also might have been better prepared for the terrified leap of a woman in the way of his speeding Jeep on the rainy highway. But as it stood?

He wasn't.

He shouted. She screamed as the headlights ripped over her terrified face and waving arms. And the tires squealed, kicked sideways, and tore up pavement as he tried to fight against the storm and the road.

He failed. Big time.

The Jeep skidded, it rocked, and metal sparked like fire as it went over, flipping and rolling into the grass along the side of the highway to end up on its side in the pouring rain.

The tick of the engine filled the burning night. The roll bar had saved his life. He wasn't dead. He was hurt. He was trapped between the dash and the door, grunting and afraid…but he was alive.

The face appeared in the ripped soft top of the Jeep, desperate. "Oh my GOD! Are you ok!?"

Leon grunted, feeling the blood trickle down his face from the hit it had taken against the windshield mid flip. "Well…if I wasn't fired before, I will be now."

The eyes blinked at him, surprised. "What?"

"I'm late. For my first fucking day on the job."

"Oh…oh my god…you're a cop!?"

He rolled his eyes, wincing as he tried to shift toward her outstretched hand. She caught his and pulled. They managed to get him out of the wreckage of his Jeep, without him making too many painful grunts.

"I was. Not sure I will be for long though."

He rose, wiping at the blood on his nose. His Jeep was a fucking mess. It was crumped on one side and smoking on the other. The hood was smashed completely into the windshield. It had crumped like a accordion. He was lucky to be alive.

He turned toward the girl, "What the fuck were you doing out in the middle of the road anyway? It's a god damn monsoon out here."

Lightning flickered, splitting over the turbulent sky, accompanied by booming thunder – and the surprised face of Claire Redfield. He froze, watching her. "….you."

She blinked, lifting her hands in the pretty red leather jacket she wore, "I need your help."

"You kidding?" He reached into his crumped glovebox to pull his sidearm that was tucked there. He holstered it on his thigh, watching her in the rain. "I'm going to fucking arrest you."

Surprised, Claire shook her head, "What for!? I was hailing you for HELP! I didn't wreck your damn car! That was you! You were speeding so fast you had to be going at LEAST forty over the limit. You're a TERRIBLE driver!"

Leon shook his head, pointing at her with one partially gloved hand. His fingertips were exposed, but the rest were concealed in tactical gloves. All part of the RPD uniform he was wearing. The itchy uniform was complete with a Kevlar vest on his chest emblazoned with the Raccoon Police acronym.

"You leapt in the way of a speeding vehicle, Ms. Redfield. That's an offense." He was pretty sure it was some kind of offense. Pretty sure. The fact that he was speeding? Entirely irrelevant. Entirely.

"It's Claire, Officer Asshole, CLAIRE. Mrs. Redfield is my mother."

He shook his head, again, "Don't get an attitude with me, young lady. Or I'll add resisting arrest and assaulting an officer to your charges."

Her brows winged up into her pretty, braided, soaked hair, "You fucking kidding me here?! I didn't do anything wrong! My bike stalled out over there! My brother hasn't called me back in WEEKS! And I saw a caravan of paramilitary vehicles roar passed me over here about an hour ago toward the city. Something is WRONG, Officer. And I'm not going to stand here and let you arrest me to salve your ego because you are the worst driver in the world!"

Leon gripped her arm above the elbow, guiding her toward the road. "Show me the bike. I'll get it started and escort you to town. But you will be held there, in a cell, until I determine the charges. I nearly died, Ms. Redfield. And you're acting like you're not to blame."

"I'm not!" Claire jerked on her arm and he kept hold, eyeing her narrowly, "What's your damage, dude? You got a stick up your ass because you're late on your first day? Maybe if you didn't smell like the back room of a brewery, you'd have made it on time."

He froze, giving her a dark glare. "I'm not drunk."

"Dude- you smell like you bathed in bad scotch."

Leon shook his head, gnashing his teeth. The worst part here? She was kinda right. He wasn't drunk. He was HUNG OVER, but that was entirely her fault. One –for being alive. Two – for getting him dumped. Three – for causing his wreck. Surely, all these things were illegal.

He just needed to find the right charge to file against her.

He shook his head and jerked on her arm, putting her face down on the seat of her softail motorcycle. She shouted, angrily, "HEY!"

And he snapped the cuffs on her wrists. "That's enough of that. You're under arrest."

"FOR WHAT!?" She kicked at him as he pulled her up and poked her on the front of the bike. He climbed on behind her and prepared to start it.

"For…attempted solicitation of a police officer."

Claire blinked, twice, as he rose on the seat to give the bike a kick start. "….are you FUCKING serious?! Solicitation?!"

"That's right…you came on to me when I was in uniform."

"WHEN!?" She had to laugh. She had to. He was the stupidest man she'd ever met. "That NEVER happened! You big, fat, stupid liar!"

"Watch it with the language, missy." He instructed, "Or I'll add…verbal battery to the charges." These all sounded like legit things. Seriously. They did. She was in big trouble. Big time.

"….you are a disgusting TROLL of a man." Claire shook her head, fuming, "Officer Asshole fits you. But I should modify it to Officer Lying Asshole – since you need a first name…and you'll never start the bike that way, idiot. I tried that already."

He leaned over the seat and pulled on something below her eyeline. "Be quiet, girl. You have the right to remain silent. Use it."

"Blow me, jackass. And you can quote that in your report. Of course…you're probably fired anyway. Who are we kidding? Typical cop. Arresting someone because he's too drunk to drive."

"I am NOT drunk!" He shouted it and gripped the handle bar, lifting his butt, and kicked down on the bike. Claire opened her mouth to make fun of him again for trying – when the damn thing fired up with a pretty roar of sound.….damn him. He'd managed to get it started after all. Proving he was an asshole – but he knew about bikes.

He shot away from the road with her in front of him, fuming. She had to trust him to keep them upright with her impairing his control. Surprisingly, he handled the damn thing like a champ.

They whipped through the pouring rain, Claire gnashing her teeth.

Above the rain, she shouted, "You need a helmet, Officer ASSHOLE!"

They cruised toward the edge of town, too fast for the rain. But again, she was with the WORST driver in the world. So it shouldn't have surprised her.

And her next retort was swallowed down with a lump when the bike idled down and came to stop. In the center of the road, a woman lay face down in the rain. The lightning flickered and flashed, the thunder rolled, and the pinkish puddle around her told them she was lying in blood.

Leon hesitated, sitting behind her.

Claire said, softly, "Is she alive?"

"…I don't know."

Claire turned her head to look at him. His hair was in streamers around his face. She glanced back at the woman in the cutoff shorts. "Should-should you…you know…check?"

"And leave you alone?"

"….I'm fine. I promise. Just…is she alive?"

"….I don't know that either."

But he threw his leg off the bike anyway and pulled his firearm, easing forward in the torrential rain. He nudged the woman with his boot and finally ended up crouching to feel for a pulse in her neck. Nothing. Dead.

But that wasn't the worst part. The worst part?

She made a small sound, like a moan.

Leon reached to roll her over, "She's alive! But she's hurt!" He shouted to Claire. But the woman was covered in bites. Animal? Had she been attacked by an animal?

Claire called bac k, voice quavering, "Officer?"

The woman turned her ruined face from the road and looked at him. Which wasn't possible. At all. Because she was dead. But her filmy eyes suggested she was also …undead.

And Claire shouted, "OFFICER!"

Desperate.

A desperate moment.

Because he lifted his gaze from the woman in his arms moaning like a monster…to see an army of them shambling from between buildings and around corners in the thundering rain toward them.

He whispered, "Jesus Christ…"

And the woman in his arms lunged for his face.

The girl on the bike shouted, "LEON!"

And the world narrowed down to a handful of seconds.

He shot twice with the gun trapped between himself and the woman lunging toward him snapping her teeth like a monster in face. She got her teeth into his vest and jerked, snarling like a dog. The bullets exploded out her back in a burst of blood that didn't splatter, but plopped, and the girl on the bike kicked the snapping woman off him.

Woman?

No.

ZOMBIE.

He scrambled up, grabbing for Claire's arm to jerk her back toward the bike. She climbed on in front him and he joined her, gunning the engine.

They didn't wait. They couldn't. They shot off into the dark while hands grabbed uselessly at their clothes.

Too close.

Too fucking close.

The rain turned so thick that he couldn't get far before he had to bring the bike to a halt under an over pass. The bridge muffled the roar of the sound with a metallic cushion as he climbed off, pacing.

Claire called, quietly, "HEY! Uncuff me, Officer. Now. Ok? Please? This isn't funny anymore. And I saved your life back there. Come on."  
Leon turned back to look at her. "You know who I am."

"Yeah. I do. Leon Kennedy, right? We met at the bar. I remember now. Nice to see you again. Uncuff me. Ok?" She wiggled her hands, "Come on. There's no more cops and bad guys here, Kennedy. Just you and me and the dead. You see all those fucking things back there? Zombies right? We're in the Walking Dead here. And I'm not pulling a Laurie and dying. So uncuff me, and let's see if we can get the hell outta here together."

Leon paused, considering things. Claire gave him a long look, "Come on, hotshot. Don't be stupid. Don't be a fucking hero. Uncuff me and run. I can't. I have to get to the RPD station. But you? You can get the hell outta here."

Leon shook his head, "I can't…I can't let you go alone. Why? Why would you? Come with me, and we'll take the back roads outta here."

"…I…" Claire hesitated and sighed, "I can't. My brother, remember? My brother is S.T.A.R.S. He's here. I know it. I have to find him."

Leon studied her for a long moment. HE should run. He should leave her and run. He should leave her to it and get the fuck outta here.

But he couldn't.

He just…couldn't. He was a COP. That had to mean something. It had to. He couldn't let her go alone. It wasn't hero stuff…it was cop stuff.

He shook his head and moved over to uncuff her. She rubbed her wrists when he did, hooking the cuffs back into his vest. "I'll…go with you. I have to go with you. I might be the last cop in this city. I can't let you go alone."

Surprised, Claire studied his face. Still handsome. He'd been so fucking cute in that bar, she'd had to flirt. He was still cute. Maybe more so. The bad driver/drunk on his first day thing? Totally hot for a girl who liked bad boys.

She shifted a little, "Ok. But…no more trying to arrest me, alright?"

He laughed, shaking his head. "I don't think that shit matters anymore, do you?"

He was shaking, which said he was scared. He was shaking, which said he was mortal. He was shaking, which told her he was brave to keep going. She liked the shaking. She liked the scared. It said he wasn't stupid. He was just noble.

"Not really. But you still want to play hero, huh?"

He shook his head, climbing on bike, but she shook her head and took the handlebars, forcing him to the back to hook his arms around her waist. "Not hero stuff. Just…cop s tuff. If…if I 'm still a cop…who the hell knows right? It's my first day on the job."

"Well, hold on sweetheart, I think this might be the shittiest first day of the job anyone ever had."

He laughed, without humor, holding on when she fired up the bike. "I guess it's a good god damn thing I was late."

Claire laughed, watching the shamble of corpses finally cross the hill top to start moving toward them under the bridge. "Jesus….you shoulda picked another day to be on duty, dude."

"No shit…" He watched the zombies lumber toward them as Claire kicked off and shot back into the rain. "Cluster fuck, right? Story of my life."


	4. Outbreak

**Raccoon City**

* * *

 **Raccoon City, Pennsylvania**

 **September 26, 2018 –**

 **Outbreak**

* * *

The first wreckage on the main road forced them to pull off. It was a loss. They were done traveling this way by vehicle. They'd have to hoof it on foot.

Claire rolled the bike in the pouring rain into the dark beside J's Bar. It was a return to the site of their fated social media snafu. Leon shook his head, sliding off the bike to star at the flickering sign.

He'd played darts here and lost. He'd lost more than the game, he'd lost a great portion of the things that mattered to him. He was currently ass deep in a nightmare, and there wasn't a person on Earth that cared about it. Who could he text? Could he text at all?

Curious, he reached into his vest for his phone - but it was gone. It was likely on the floorboard of his recently deceased Jeep.

Claire beat him to it anyway. She opened her iPhone and tried to get a message out to someone. It bleeped to signal success but it wouldn't let her do more than briefly scan her Twitter feed to see if anyone, anywhere, knew what the hell was happening. Instagram had pictures, naturally, but no one believed what they'd put. It was a great cosmic joke.

Someone had hashtagged it **_#survivalhorror_ **and thought a movie was being filmed in Raccoon City.

Another person had put up a selfie of her pointing to a "body" in the road behind her that was starting to rise. She didn't look scared, she looked excited...like she'd walked onto the set of _The Walking Dead_. She captioned it "Evil Takes Residence in Raccoon. YIKES!".

Another photo showed a zombie literally in mid chomp on a person in the park. The photo was horrifying, not just for the subject matter, but because the photographer thought it was part of the "show". They captioned this one "The dead are rising! He _**#HANGRY**_! Get out there and find out how method these actors are, peeps! Come on! Join the fun! **_#4itchytasty_**."

Jesus. Social media had been the death of this city. No one, anywhere, knew what was really happening here.

Finally, Claire found a short clip uploaded hours before. It was army vehicles raising through the streets, it was accompanied by the voice of a popular YouTube-r named ConspiracyPirate. His voice floated up to them, "I said it would happen. I warned everyone. No one listened. I was laughed at, looked down on...I told you what I saw in the forest months ago, all of you. I went to the police. I went to the fucking Chief. I told that son of a bitch in the sunglasses that we weren't ALONE here. But he didn't listen. That idiot in S.T.A.R.S. I met? Redfield? That guy LAUGHED at me. Who's laughing now? HUH!? WHO'S LAUGHING NOW!? The end is nigh, assholes."

The video ended when a masked soldier snatched the phone and threw it to the ground to smash it with his boot. But not before they heard it. They heard the man in the video scream and the sound of gunfire.

Claire grabbed Leon's arm at the elbow, terrified. "They killed him."

"...I know."

"They killed this man for telling the truth."

"I know." He said again, so softly. His guts hurt with fear. "I know."

"What was that on his uniform? What is U.B.C.S.?"

Leon shook his head, "I don't know. Paramilitary forces of some kind. Your brother might know."

Claire looked stricken. Her face was wet from rain and fear. "You heard this guy...he tried. He saw Chris. He tried to tell him. Chris was S.T.A.R.S. He was the best this city had. If he's...if...what if..." She trailed off, looking lost.

Leon touched her back, gently. "Hey...hey look here."

She did, eyes wide. He held her gaze with purpose. "Hey...if he's as good as you say, he's alive. He's probably hiding somewhere. Where would he hide? Where's the safest place in this city?"

Claire took a deep breath and it trembled, "The RPD station."

"Right. Let's start there. Ok? But you gotta believe he's there and ok, Claire. You've got to believe that...or we won't make it."

Claire drew strength from him, nodding sharply. "Right. RIGHT. Shit."

They moved together to the bar entrance on the back side of the building. The door was ajar and Leon eased through first, gun drawn. They were both breathing sharply but he let the training take over to calm him. Training that said protect the girl at his side and get out alive.

Quietly, Claire whispered, "You have another piece?"

Leon glanced at her where she was slighting behind him. "What?"

"I'm a good shot. You have a spare gun?"

He shook his head and Claire shrugged. "Never hurts to ask, right?"

They eased into the kitchen of the bar, Leon astutely aware they weren't alone. He could hear voices and commotion toward the front. They shifted in together and Claire locked the door to the street that they'd come through.

Claire said, softly, "I know all of them. They're regulars. They probably holed up here to hide out."

Leon nodded and they eased through the quiet kitchen into the main part of the bar. In a handful of seconds, he and the other cop in the bar were staring down the barrels of each other's guns.

The blonde waitress between them lifted her hands, "Whoa...whoa whoa whoa...ease down guys. We're all humans here."

Claire added, "Hey Kevin, you planning to kill this rookie?"

Kevin Ryman lowered his weapon first. He was handsome, shaggy haired, and looked tired and wet. He glanced between Claire and Leon and shook his head, "The rookie. Kennedy?"

"Yup." Leon lowered his weapon too, "We met before I think."

"We did, briefly." Kevin shook his head, laughing without humor, "Shit...welcome to your first shift."

Another person in the bar scoffed, "I thought my luck was in the crapper man. What a first day."

Leon shook his head as Claire, the waitress, and another woman secured the side door to make sure it was locked. The bar had a handful of folks in it. An old guy, an off duty security guard, a subway worker and another waiter - this one male. The owner, Phil, was behind the bar looking tired and put out. But at least there were no dead guys trying to eat people.

Claire introduced each one. Cindy - the girl waitress. Will - the boy waitor. Bob - the half asleep old security guard at the bar counter. Mark - the younger guy with the start of a beer belly that reminded Leon of Ving Rhames. Jim - the subway worker with the hair the color of dandelions. His dark skin made his hair look neon. Alyssa- the reporter in the red suit that was trying to get a signal on her phone to contact her office. David King- a plumber that looked like a model in coveralls with a toolbelt on his narrow hips.

Leon remarked, "Anyone else in here?"

Cindy started to answer - and it didn't matter anymore. The world? It just...erupted.

Claire, a short distance away, briefly heard Will say, "What a weird costumer…"

Cindy screamed and jumped on a stool close to her. There was the sound of breaking glass as a rat scurried by.

Mark yelled, "Bob!" As the old man at the bar crumpled sideways and fell to the floor.

Jim was screaming. "KEVIN! KEVIN! Oh my god!"

Will was struggling with a customer who'd come in the front door. The door...that apparently wasn't locked.

Leon shouted, "What fucking idiot left that door open!?"

Claire had a moment to be surprised before Will was screaming and shoving. She watched blood fly and speckle the floor around him.

Kevin returned, "Lock the goddamn door!" And pulled his side arm, a Colt .45. He aimed it at the moaning customer. "Freeze R.P.D.!"

But Will wasn't finished, he kept shoving until the man was outside the door and then he slammed it closed and threw the dead bolt.

Horrified, Claire watched his neck gush blood. It was bad, soaking the front of his uniform almost instantly. Will stumbled, trying to stop the bleeding and collapsed to the floor. Claire started to rush toward him, but Kevin grabbed her arm.

She looked at his face, opened her mouth to say Will needed an ambulance, and Jim started screaming.

"Holy shit!"

There was a man on the other side of the window leading into the bar. He was running a face that looked like a mangled pizza over the shiny glass, leaving bits of flesh and trails of blood behind.

They heard someone screaming outside the glass as pandemonium ensued. A handful of seconds found Kevin yelling, "Somebody help me!"

He was shoving one of the giant barrels that served as window tables toward the main door. Claire realized it was actually genius of him considering in another minute, cannibals were going to be beating the flimsy wood down.

Without a word, she watched the plumber, David King, come running from the kitchen area. Leon joined the battle against the barrels, he just started shoving a second barrel as Kevin moved the first and David manned the third one.

Jim, not the bravest soul, was still being surprisingly helpful. He was pulling the injured Will back and laying him behind the bar.

Claire watched at least ten more faces move up and starting pressing against the glass. The cannibals were trying to beat through the windows and didn't seem to care that they were bloodying their selves in the process.

Their numbers were growing. Ten became fifteen, became twenty.

Jim yelled, "Oh my god! Mr. Clark!"

And Alyssa was crying out, "John Stevens?!"

People started yelling for Kevin and David to unblock the door. Leon returned, "They aren't your friends! You know that! What's out there?! It's not HUMAN!"

Claire knew what she was looking at. And it wasn't their friends or lovers beating on the windows. It was something else, something hungry. And whatever had happened to them, it was contagious. Cannibals...no...zombies. ZOMBIES.

Phil was crying and holding his hand. It looked like a nasty rat bite.

He wrapped a dish towel around it, cursing.

There was a loud yelp in the bathroom and a clatter before a small asian girl scurried out, holding a scrub brush like a weapon.

She said, "There's someone trying to crawl in through the vent in the bathroom." She sounded calm, which was amazing.

Mark was shouldering up Bob and Cindy ran around the bar and popped open the cash register. She grabbed the key to the staff room and the first aid kit that was stuffed on a bottom shelf.

Whatever was happening out there they all knew they couldn't hide in here forever. Eventually the barrels would give and the windows would crash in.

There were at least fifty cannibals gathered outside the bar. No... **ZOMBIES**. Claire kept trying to shift over to Will and help him, but Leon wouldn't let go of her arm as he kept her away. "He's gone."

"Stop it!" Claire jerked on her limb, "He's still alive!"

Leon gave her a cool look that resonated, "...he won't be for long. But keep waiting, Claire, we both know he'll get back up soon enough."

She jerked her arm away and shoved him, "What kind of cop leaves people to die?"

"...the kind that knows you can't save everyone." Kevin filled in the silence and Claire spun away from them, fuming.

Cindy tossed the key to Alyssa and said, "People listen. We have to get to the roof, it's the only way. We can make the jump to the building across the street and go out the back way toward the Apple Inn."

Mark helped Bob as Alyssa unlocked the door. She was the first one through and everyone seemed to understand that it was seriously important that they move as quickly as possible.

The back stairway was narrow and Cindy waited while the Asian girl, Claire, a nerdy looking man with what looked like a leather doctor's case, Phil and Jim ran through.

Mark and David put Bob between them to move faster and Kevin kept his .45 trained on the windows as he gestured for Leon to go.

Leon took the lead, doing his job, and trusted Kevin to bring up the rear and do his.

Kevin backed in after Cindy and helped her push the statue at the base of the stairs forward until it blocked the door behind them. It was all they could do.

Leon didn't like leaving Will behind but the man was dead or dying, his jugular completely severed. The cannibal had bitten right through. He figured they could all ask for atonement later.

Claire hurried up the stairs with Kevin close behind her. At the landing where the stairs curved, Jim was screaming.

One of the cannibals had busted through the glass of the window and was trying to yank him out through the jagged hole. Cindy was yelling and pulling on Jim's shirt, trying to hold him still and pull him back.

Kevin stopped and went still, aiming over Claire's shoulder but it was a bad angle and a tight shot. He'd be lucky not to hit Jim in the struggle. Leon was doing his best to angle in for a shot himself, but it was too narrow and too risky.

Surprisingly, David saved the day.

He pulled a wrench out of the tool belt slung at his hip and hit the cannibal in the back of the head. It screamed and released Jim, reaching for David. Leon elbowed it in the side of the head and sent it reeling even as it tried to make a grab for Claire.

Kevin moved quickly and kicked, hitting the ugly monster in the chest with a solid hip kick. It flailed it's arms and fell outward, screaming pitifully as it tumbled down into it's wailing brothers.

Jim grappled on Kevin's shoulders, sputtering. "Oh god thank you. The smell…it smelled…like…"

David's voice, gruff and deep, "Death."

Jim nodded, rapidly. Leon shoved him toward the stairs to the top floor. Claire shoved Leon as he grabbed for her arm to push her that way too, and shouted, "Enough! Stop manhandling me!"

There was a crash from the front of the bar. They'd broken through the barricade.

Sick of it, Kevin started pushing everyone. "Go! Go now!"

Cindy rushed up the stairs between David and Kevin, feeling her heart rate increase, fast and furious. Alyssa was closed behind, shaking her head at the drama that some people brought with him. That girl in the red leather? She clearly did NOT like the handsome cop she'd brought into the bar with her.

At the top of the stairs, Alyssa's cell phone started to ring.

She fumbled it out of her pocket and made a dash for the hallway to the break room.

Cindy was standing there waiting.

There were boards scattered around the floor by the door. Phil had been in the process of building a bookcase for the employees to store break time reading material.

She said, "Somebody help me."

And David stopped to hold the boards over the entrance to the hallway. They were going to attempt to shore up the open archway. Why not? It was better than standing around waiting to die.

There was the loud sound of nail gun firing as Alyssa answered her phone.

Claire stumbled back against the wall as Jim rushed into Phil's office with Phil, looking for anything useful. The little Asian girl was entering the drawing room with Alyssa. There was a shot gun in the drawing room. Phil had it locked up in a cabinet in there. Unfortunately, the key was downstairs, taped under the counter. She hoped they knew how to break it open.

The nerdy doctor guy was sitting on the floor, digging through his leather case. He pulled out a scalpel and a bottle of some white liquid.

Claire tried to gather her composure as Leon busted out the glass on the shotgun cabinet so they could grab it.

Cindy was unlocking the door to the stair way to the roof.

Jim was carrying what looked like a small handgun and Phil was brandishing a broom. He looked seriously ill, pale and trembling. The bite on his hand had bled through the towel wrapped around it.

Mark said, "Claire- take my gun."

She did what he asked as he helped Bob back up and carried most of the older man's weight. The comfort of the gun made her feel like she just might survive this nightmare. Maybe.

The gun was loaded and she clicked off the safety. It was maybe the third time in her life she'd held a real gun outside of the range with Chris. But the feel of it, cool and heavy, made her feel just a little safer.

The side of the barrel read Beretta.

The Asian girl and Alyssa emerged from the drawing room. Alyssa held Phil's shotgun and the girl was packing extra cartridges into her backpack. Leon was carrying a crossbow in his hands. He queried, "Anybody a hunter?"

And the nerdy doctor took the crossbow, nodding. "Not sure it's the same as big buck hunting."

Leon patted his arm, "Shoot it, kill it - don't skin it and eat it. And don't let it eat you."

The nerdy doctor chuckled, "Wise words."

Cindy waved her arm. "Come on, let's go!"

The nerdy doctor was wielding the crossbow. David had a small folding knife that he'd pulled out of his tool belt - that was full of other useful items they'd yet discovered. Kevin was holding his .45. Claire and Leon both had guns. There was a shotgun in the hands of a reporter. As far as weapons went, it wasn't too bad.

Kevin went through the door first with Mark and Bob following. Leon took up the rear.

Claire waited until everyone was through before she followed. There was nothing to put in front of the door this time so she hurried to stay close to everyone else.

Down in the staff room, she could hear the high moaning of the cannibals as they beat on the make shift barricade between them and their prey.

There was a loud snap as one of the boards broke free and she slammed the large door at the top of stairs behind her. They were in the liquor room, where Phil stocked all the alcohol for the bar. Cindy was explaining that from here it was a brief run up another flight of stairs to the roof.

David was dragging a box toward the door. It was a case of liquor and the nerdy doctor moved to help him, pushing while David pulled. Leon and Kevin were deeper in the liquor room, clearing it and looking for anything useful.

From the front of the liquor room, Claire heard Cindy scream.

"The shutters down! The fucking shutter is down!"

Cindy looked terrified. She told them the shutter being closed was a nightmare. The button for the shutter was down in the owner's room, inside Phil's desk drawer, and the cannibals had started breaking through the boards.

They could hear their moaning on the stairs outside the liquor room.

Phil was leaning on the wall, panting. He said, softly, "Cindy…the forklift key. The key. In the stock room."

She jumped and realized he was right.

At the far side of the room, a forklift sat dormant frozen in mid lift with a shipment. If they got the key and started the lift, they could climb up onto the boxes and crawl through the open vent leading to the stairs.

It was the best plan they had so Cindy said, "Guard the door. I'll be right back."

She ran into the door opposite the one leading the stairwell.

It was little more then a cram space with coolers. She started digging through boxes and shoving over bottles in her search for the key.

Phil usually kept it somewhere close when the workers came to restock.

She found it sitting on the table at the far side of the room and snatched it up, already running.

David was leaning against the boxes and the nerdy doctor was sitting on the floor with his back against them. The door beyond them was shaking as the cannibals banged incessantly, trying to get in. Kevin added his bulk to the barricade to help hold the door closed.

Cindy ran past them and saw that Bob was in pretty bad shape, he was sitting on the floor with his head in his hands. She didn't think he could make the climb to the top of the storage wall.

Phil stumbled a little and smashed into the wall. Liquor bottles fell, making a very loud crash as the smashed into tiny shards on the hard floor.

Cindy yelped and Jim started mumbling. Claire thought he said something about his life being shit even as Cindy tossed Leon the key and he was already putting the key into the lift and pressing the button.

The hum of the forklift moving was loud in the quiet room. Loud enough it almost drowned out the desperate moans of the cannibal's just outside.

Mark was lifting Bob and the nerdy doctor was helping Phil.

Cindy said, "I'm going to go through and open the shutter from the other side."

David yelled, "Hurry this won't hold much longer. There's got to be at least a dozen of them beating against this door." Leon returned to help throw more weight against the door.

Cindy hurried.

She scrambled up the ladder with the Claire close behind her.

Cindy said, "Claire wait!"

But Claire was already fox crawling after her. "No way! If there's something on the other side of the shutter, you're dead. I can't let you go alone."

She had a good point.

Cindy shifted herself and lowered backward through the open vent, easing herself down until her feet touched.

It was cooler on this side; there was a suggestion of night air from the open roof just beyond the door at the top of the stairs. The area was grey and dull and wonderfully empty.

Cindy scurried down to open the shutter as Claire came through the vent and found her footing.

It whined on badly oiled hinges as it rolled upward. When it was halfway open, Jim crab walked through with the nerdy doctor and Phil close behind.

There was a loud crash somewhere inside the liquor room and the low boom of Kevin's .45, the deeper, harder shot of the shotgun following it closely. Alyssa had taken up guarding the door with Kevin, David, and Leon.

The little Asian girl hurried through and helped Mark shoulder up Bob as they passed through the shutter.

Cindy yelled, "Up the stairs, out the door! It's the roof! Hurry! Go!"

No one argued and they followed Cindy, letting her show them the door.

Claire waited tensely until she saw Alyssa and David come around the corner of the room and mount the stairs to the shutter.

"Where's Kevin and Leon?"

Alyssa said, "They were right behind us."

Claire nodded. "Go!" And she ran back into the liquor room, holding the Beretta tightly in her sweating palms.

Kevin was backing down the walkway toward the stairs to the shutter, firing rapidly, reloading and firing again. When he saw Claire, he nodded to her and raced off to protect the rest of the group on the stairs.

Leon was too close to the mess of them, too close, and the sight of it nearly killed Claire where she stood. He kept firing into the mass of them though - stupid hero cop. She shouted, "IDIOT! RUN!"

Leon yelled, "I'll hold them here! Go on!"

Claire shook her head, "Leon- let's go! The roof is right outside. All we have to do is jump to the next building!"

She froze as she saw the cannibals stumbling drunkenly toward Leon, tripping stupidly over their fallen friends.

His aim hadn't failed him under panic. Most of them had been dispatched with a neat shot to the forehead or through the eye.

He'd taken out eight maybe nine of them and from the ruin of bodies piled by the door, most of their chests a bloody stain on the wall behind them, she figured Alyssa had taken out a few more with the shotgun.

Leon took out the closest one to them and it fell, causing three more that shambled close beside it to lose their footing and collapse. It was a heap of cannibals now and an effective barrier to the rest that stumbled and wailed behind them.

Liquor fell off shelves, smashing and startling the stupid creatures. Brain dead dumbasses that they were, they tried to climb over their struggling comrades to feast. It was horror movie bad. It was worth a stare or two.

Claire grabbed Leon's arm and they turned and ran. Leon paused long enough to press the button and close the shutter behind them and then they were sprinting up the stairway and smashing through the door to the roof.

She heard the crying before she focused on where it was coming from.

Mark was holding Bob and sobbing.

There was a large splash of blood on the wall behind them. For a moment, she thought they'd been attacked but there was too much blood and too little on Bob for that.

It didn't take Leon long to realize what had happened. Bob had shot himself.

The grief tried to well up, tried to grab the group by the throat and was fought back, desperately. There wasn't time to mourn, wasn't even time to think about mourning.

Kevin was touching Mark's shoulder, trying to get him to stand.

David had bent down to scoop up Bob's still smoking side arm. Waste not, want not.

It was cold and heartless, maybe, but it was also practical. They needed the weapon, Bob no longer did. David and Leon exchanged a nodding glance. Easier, Claire thought, for the rookie. He didn't know these people. He didn't know Bob had a tendency to make bad puns and talk too much about his grandkids. He wouldn't mourn him. Maybe it was better to be the rookie.

Mark seemed to get himself together. He said, "Goodbye old friend. I won't forget you."

Alyssa was yelling from somewhere up ahead. "Help!"

They started running again. No time to despair.

The Asian girl was swinging her arms desperately at the crows that seemed to have gone crazy. They were dive bombing, pecking and squawking madly.

Claire lifted the gun at one that was currently trying to yank the Asian girl's hair out of her head. Trusting in the weapon, she fired.

The crow squawked madly and fell, hitting the ground with a thump and a rapid flutter of wings before it went still.

Leon glanced at her in surprise and she shrugged, "I told you I was a good shot."

The nerdy doctor had found a pipe somewhere and was swinging it like a baseball bat, smacking the crazy birds out of the sky.

Kevin and David were kicking at the gate that hung loosely to the walk way on the roof. They needed to get passed the gate and make a run for the other rooftop.

It was about a four foot jump to the opposing roof top but it was possible to make.

The gate came crashing down and David leapt up, helping Cindy up after him. Jim was quick to follow with Mark on his heels. The nerdy doctor smashed the remaining crow out of the sky and leapt up after them with Alyssa and the Asian girl in hot pursuit. Leon was the first to the far side, cradling his hands for the first brave soul to make the jump.

Kevin was helping Claire up when they heard it: a moan, so close, too close.

Claire scrambled the rest of the way up and looked for Phil.

He was shambling toward them, slowly. Moving like…like one of the cannibals.

In horror, Cindy yelled, "Phil!"

But his eyes were glazed over, like fish eyes, and he was keening highly in his throat. It was a hungry sound. An unmistakable sound.

Kevin yelled, "Go!"

And the rest of the group starting running for the opposite side of the roof.

He grabbed Claire's arm and she hesitated, yanking against him.

"Claire- he's gone! We gotta go!"

She stared at Phil, at his familiar face, so sweet, so chubby. She couldn't leave him, not like this.

She said, "Wait please." And it sounded calm.

She lifted the gun, aimed at Phil's head, said, "I'm sorry Phil. I'm so sorry." And fired.

Brains and blood splattered the wall behind Phil and he went down, crashing loudly against the roof top.

She couldn't help him but she could give him peace.

Kevin took her arm, gently this time. "Claire…"

"Let's go." She rushed past him, hurrying to where the other's were waiting.

She was terrified, her heart beating a hundred miles an hour. She wanted Chris and he was somewhere out there, alive or dead. She had to find him.

The door to the roof banged open and the cannibal wails chased them across the roof.

They only had once chance- they had to make that jump or they'd die eaten to death by monsters. By cannibals. No...damn it...they KNEW what was chasing them.

 **ZOMBIES.**

It was a nightmare. There was no hope.

And they had officially entered the world of survival horror.


	5. Ride or Die

**Raccoon City**

* * *

 **Raccoon City, Pennsylvania**

 **September 26, 2018 –**

 **Ride or Die**

* * *

Claire watched the Asian girl make a desperate leap and fall, grasping desperately at the edge of the opposite building with one hand. She yelled and David was there helping her up.

It had been easy for him to make the leap. He was lithe and quick on his feet.

Alyssa tossed the shot gun to the waiting girl and leapt after her, grasping easily and pulling herself up. Jim went next, jumping and having David grab his arms when he just missed.

Mark, bigger and heavier, needed David and Jim to help him when he didn't make it.

The nerdy doctor made the leap without much effort and landed just on the other side on his knees. He scrambled up as Claire stepped forward to jump.

Cindy was shouting for her to hurry.

Leon stood, ready, with his hands cradled. The rain whipped his hair around his face. The cleft in his chin that she'd adored that night she met him was flecked with blood from the dead. He gave her calm eyes, in the middle of this madness, and she saw the flicker of something on him that she couldn't place.

What was it? A story where he was the hero? Something. It said he was incredible under pressure. It said he was terrified, in the flicker of his mouth and the sweat on his brow, but he was holding it together for the people he was protecting. Not just a cop - a hero cop.

He encouraged, quietly, "Come on, Claire. I'll toss you. You''ll make it, I promise."

She believed him. Why? Again, she couldn't explain it. But she believed him.

In the alley below them, cannibals moaned and shoved around each other, waiting for someone to fall, waiting to eat them alive.

Claire shook off the fear, slipped the Beretta into the back of her pants, threw her boot into his waiting hands - and pushed off. Strong, he tossed her up and out like she was nothing. The world whipped in color and rain and fear - and she missed the roof and grabbed the edge, dangling.

But not for long. Because she wasn't alone here.

David grabbed her, pulling her up just as Claire thought it was over and she was going to fall.

She clung to him for just a moment before letting him go.

She handed the Beretta back to Mark just as Kevin jumped and fell into a shoulder roll as he landed, coming up on his feet. The last off the the line, Leon backed up to leap as the dead poured against the gate behind him. He hit the roof in a roll and skidded to his feet.

They all stood for a moment, staring at the roof top of the bar where the cannibals were all shambling around, apparently too dumb to make the climb up to the walk way toward them.

Jim was the first to speak. "Come on my crew!"

He sprinted toward the doorway that would take them into the building.

Somewhere down below a voice came over a megaphone.

"This is the Raccoon City Police Department. Temporary aid stations have been constructed around the city. We are holding out until help arrives. Your nearest station is three blocks east. If anyone's alive come to the Apple Inn for an evacuation."

It sounded like a plan.

They shoved through the door and left the police man's voice behind.

Inside Jim was already stabbing at the elevator pad and pretty much dancing as they waited.

Claire wasn't going to be evacuated, she was going to Chris. He was at the station. Her mind refused to accept that he might be dead.

The elevator pinged and the doors slid open. They all piled in and David hit the button for the bottom floor. The traumatized group stood as it lowered, impossibly quiet, impossibly loud.

Alyssa remarked, "Nobody better fart on this damn elevator, I swear to god."

And someone laughed.

Claire felt rain water drip down her nose and looked up from where she was checking the clip on her gun. Leon was watching her, quietly. The soft light from the elevator cast his hair in shadow. He didn't look blonde in this light. He looked dark haired. But his eyes were beautiful. Thick lashed and very, very blue under the sharp curve of his brows. She forgot he was kind of a jerk and simply enjoyed his face.

He murmured, "You ok?"

And she shrugged a shoulder, lightly. "Is there a right answer to that question?"

He scoffed, shaking his head, "No. But alive is all we got right now."

"You aren't kidding about that." She tucked a hand into her back pocket and liberated her phone, handing it to him. "See if you can get anyone at the station. I tried the S.T.A.R.S. office but no one answered."

Leon dialed swiftly, head ducked. "I'll try the bullpen."

Claire considered the downward tilt of his profile for a moment as he dialed and wasn't really aware that her hand had shifted to the cleft in his chin. It swept there, just her thumb, and brought his eyes swiftly to her face in surprise.

She flushed, feeling a little light headed, and murmured, "Sorry...just...it-old blood."

The corner of his mouth lifted, just a bit. "...right. Thanks."

Kevin coughed a little and they stopped staring at each other. The nerdy doctor was treating claw marks on the reporter's forearm from the crows. The little asian girl was helping Mark ring out the wet shirt of his uniform and put it back on. Cindy was watching Claire with a smirk on her face.

David was doing something with his tool belt, taking a piece of Phil's broken broom and his knife. Claire watched with raised brows as he made a make shift spear out of them, wrapping the knife around the wood with duct tape.

She had a moment to think he was awfully handy before the doors opened.

Three cannibals turned and started for them, keening loudly with their arms out like they were stumbling through a dark room.

Alyssa said, "Move!"

And the Asian girl ducked, along with Cindy. Leon tugged Claire against him and put her against the wall to shield her with his body. Kevin and David swung free of her spread pattern.

Alyssa opened fire on the three cannibals, who had gathered closely together to shamble down the narrow hallway to the elevator.

They wailed and fell as the buckshot tore through their chests, tore away pieces of their stomachs. Blood splashed like paint on the window behind them.

They all started running before the last body fell, leaping and moving as quickly as possible over the corpses.

The nerdy doctor was the first to reach the door and he shoved it open as a window crashed open with a tinkle of breaking glass and a cannibal dove through, clawing along the ground toward them.

Claire kept running as a flash lit the air around her and was followed by the boom of Kevin's .45 and the lighter echo of Leon's 9mm. She picked off one herself as it grunted and dove at her ankles from an open doorway.

She barreled through the door way and stumbled a little on the steps as she rushed down to street below.

The air outside stank like burning hair, like rotten milk. She started to gag when she saw a man standing there, shooting continuously.

He wore a uniform, he was a cop. He saw them all huddled on the stoop and yelled, "Ryman! Good! We need all the help we can get!"

He reloaded as he spoke.

Claire turned her eyes to the carnage in front of them. Three cannibals had downed a man and were feasting on him while he screamed and blood sprayed in a fine mist.

At least fifty more were coming, shambling down the street about a hundred yards away.

Leon ranged himself beside the man who turned his head and laughed, "Rookie! You're about to earn your newb status, kid! Helluva way to say hello!"

His name tag told Leon he was Frick.

Frick yelled, "Push those cars and make a barricade! Do it now!"

Claire started running with David and Leon close beside her. They ran in between a sideways police unit toward the one waiting farther up.

While Claire and David pushed, Leon randomly picked off cannibals that got too close. She put her back into it, shoving hard and fast.

There was a crunch as on car hit another, effectively blocking the on coming cannibals.

They turned and sprinted back toward the way they'd come.

Claire saw that the Asian girl, the nerdy doctor, and Jim had already pushed another car in place, making a second barricade while Kevin covered them.

David, Leon, and Claire climbed over the hood of one of the blocking cars and ran after the retreating police officer and the rest of their group.

They ran left through a wooden gateway, a go between that would take them out to the road and the reservoir. With little choice, they were being unceremoniously cattle herded toward the city center.

Frick the cop waved them through and slammed the wooden door behind, doing up the chain and locking it quickly.

"They're getting closer! We gotta go now!"

He turned and backed up slowly, firing as the cannibals crawled under the doorway, through the vents in the walls beside the door. It was Night of the Living Dead. It was Army of Darkness. It was horrible. They couldn't even take a moment to breathe here.

Frick had a shot gun like Alyssa. He blasted corpses and shouted orders. Whatever he was in the RPD, he was clearly a leader of men.

Jim yelled, "Oh my god it's blocked!"

Claire turned and looked. The road ahead was blocked completely by a jackknifed sixteen wheeler that slowly leaked gasoline onto the concrete beneath it.

A gas tanker. A gas…tanker.

Her mind raced, thinking, desperately. She dug in her hip pocket for her lighter...but it was in the saddlebag of her bike.

Frick was screaming. Claire spun back to the horror of it.

The cannibals had him by the ankles, one had him pinned on the ground and was chewing into his arm.

Kevin and Leon and anyone else with a gun was firing, reloading, firing, desperately trying to hold the horde at bay. But it was a losing battle. They just kept coming.

The Asian girl was swinging her back pack like a weapon.

David was stabbing at them with his make shift spear.

The dying man on the ground screamed desperately, fighting, but losing, "Fuck me! I'm done for! Get the fuck outta here! Hurry! Leak the gas and burn these bastards!"

Apparently, Claire and Frick were sharing thoughts by telepathy.

A lighter skipped across the ground from his fingers and he screamed once more as a cannibal bit into his shoulder.

Claire started to run to him, to help somehow but he was already dead, his eyes empty and dull in the bloody mask of his face.

She snatched up the lighter and started running as she yelled.

"I'm going to leak the gas! Everyone get in the water! Hurry!"

But the nerdy doctor had already turned the handles on the tanker and Claire watched the thick liquid gush forward, spilling all across the ground in a river. It slid over the cannibals, over the dead man- it turned pavement to rainbow pretty in the swirling darkness.

She skidded to a halt, watched the Asian girl and David dive into the water of the reservoir. The rest were quick to follow, only Leon staying long enough to snatch up the dead man's shot gun.

He spun back to look at her and she yelled, "GO! I'm right behind you! GO NOW!"

He did, bless him. That hero cop knew when to take an order after all.

Claire looked at the shambling horde and tossed the lighter even as she dove sideways into the water.

She went under; water going into her nose, as there was a strange deafness that comes just before giant explosion. But the WHOMP of pressure was unmistakeable. It hit the tanker. The tanker squealed. The fire destroyed. And the sky was split by fire and death.

She kept her head under as debris rained down atop the water, churning it, singing her hair. She came up to the sound of dying cannibals, looked up and managed to catch a glimpse of one burning, burning as it stumbled, burning as it fell.

It was the most horrible thing she'd ever seen. The night smelled of gas and burning flesh. She gagged and Leon gripped her jacket to pull her into motion beside him. She swam, head swirling with fear.

The fire was out of control, they had to get out before it erupted and took them all with it.

Kevin was yelling, his voice quiet over the loud crackle of the fire above them.

He was gesturing to one of the open archways into the sewer. It was their only chance.

Claire swam for the archway. Leon boosted her up and she stuck her hand down to help him in. He caught her around the hips and kinda threw her forward as the warning silence told them things were about to fall apart. They were out of time.

She stumbled and Leon curled around her back like a shield as the heat burst through the tunnel around them.

There was a sound that was vaguely cartoon like, almost a whomp of pressure, and she went to her knees and rolled the rest of the way as the force of the tanker exploding sent a massive gust of air through the tunnel. It threw them both out like they were nothing.

She came out skidding and hit the ground hard on her butt, wincing at the pain that spread up her spine. Leon hit on his side, skidding into the far wall to hit with a thunk and a grunt of pain.

They were all there, some on the ground, rubbing sore body parts, others standing, keeping guard. The rank odor of decay and defecation filled the nostrils and left an oily taste of disgust behind. Try as you might, you couldn't block the odor.

She noticed the horrible smell right before Alyssa said, "It smells like an old man's ass down here."

Someone laughed.

"It's the sewers." Kevin was already walking. "It'll take us right out in front of the Apple Inn."

Jim was limping a little. "Jesus, anyone got any weed? I wouldn't say no to a blunt or two right now."

Mark was silent, plodding along behind them.

Claire moved along, rubbing her spine. "I'm not going to the Inn. My brother is at the station. I have to get to the station."

Kevin stopped, looked at her for a long moment. "Listen, let's go up there. See what's going on. If it looks bad, we can get them to drop us at the station."

Jim said, tiredly, "Fuck that. I'm getting out of this city."

Claire was shaking her head. "That cop said there's blocks up everywhere. They aren't letting anyone in or out."

Alyssa cursed. "What's going on out there?"

Cindy had started shaking and Mark put his arm around her.

"I don't know." Claire brushed wet hair out of her eyes, "But I'm not going anywhere without Leon."

The asian girl mused, "Is Leon your brother?"

Her brain clicked, telling her she'd mispoken. She'd...she'd said the wrong damn name. Flushing, Claire corrected herself, "Sorry. Chris. My brother Chris. I'm not leaving without him."

Leon said nothing, pacing in the tunnel behind her. Lord. She was out of it. That was her only excuse here.

Kevin stared at her for a moment longer and nodded. "Okay. So we get up there, we find a car and get to the station. If we can't leave the city, we can at least wait for help there."

Claire nodded, grateful. "Okay. Thank you."

They all started walking, each other them keeping their peace for a long while.

After ten minutes of walking, Alyssa spoke, "Does anyone have a phone? Mine's fucking trash. I need to call and see if there's anyone alive at the paper. If anyone knows what's going on out there, journalists do."

Claire said quietly, "You can try mine. Though I think it's ruined from the water." She handed it over.

The Asian girl and the nerdy doctor were talking quietly up ahead.

Claire said quietly, "What's your names? We've been through all this so far and I don't even know your names."

"I'm Yoko." Said the Asian girl with a smile, "And you saved me from that bird. Thank you."

"No problem."

"I'm George." The doctor shook her hand, gently, "And it figures that the one night I decide to have a beer after a bad day, something like this happens."

Cindy was plodding along beside them. "Well don't worry George. It's a first for the rest of us too."

Leon laughed, dryly, "It's defintely a first for me."

Yoko looked at him sympathetically, "How awful. Considering a career change?"

Leon laughed, shaking his head, "Big time."

Alyssa pursed her lips and laughed, "Go with modeling, hotstuff. Just sayin."

Yoko piped in, "Definitely modeling."

Kevin snorted a little, "Put a pretty face in front of someone, and they swoon."

Leon rolled his eyes, glancing at Claire. "No comment?"

She shrugged a shoulder, "It's a nice face...for a butt chin."

He laughed, shaking his head, "...women."

He moved forward and Alyssa tilted her head at Claire, "He your guy?"

Claire laughed, shaking her head, "No. He's just some cop I met on the road. Why?"

"...he's fucking gorgeous."

Yoko nodded, looking about twelve years old. "Yes. Like a romance novel cop."

Claire shrugged, "I didn't notice."

Both women gave her such a long stare that she finally lifted her hands, "Ok. Ok. I noticed. But it doesn't matter. With everything happening right now...it sooooo doesn't matter."

Alyssa studied Leon in the ugly lighting. He managed to look good even filthy, tired, flecked in blood and walking in ankle deep water filled with shit. She chuckled, "Girl - moments like this? That's when anything that makes you forget you're fucked matters most."


	6. Who Let the Dogs Out?

**Raccoon City**

* * *

 **Raccoon City, Pennsylvania**

 **September 26, 2018 –**

 **Who Let the Dogs Out?**

* * *

They talked a little more as they walked. Mostly about stupid stuff, inconsequential things. But really it was just anything to keep the silence at bay.

It was a short climb up the ladder and onto the street.

Surprisingly, it was quiet. Claire couldn't hear the moaning or the screaming or smell the death that had become second nature since less than an hour before. Whatever madness lurked, it hadn't made it this far west yet. It would...but for now? It was still a moment of serenity in a nightmare of noise.

Alyssa handed the phone back. "It works but no one answered. Probably all dead." Claire could hear the pain in that statement. "Let's get this bitch on a roll."

She strutted off and Claire sighed, staring at the phone. _Chris- where are you? I hope you're okay._

She hurried along after the rest of the group, praying with all her might that he'd be at the station, and waiting.

There was no hope for the quiet to continue. The sounds of the dead shambling gave Claire pause as she reached the base of breezeway that the city had constructed over the highway. It would allow you pause, in a tunnel made of glass, and look down at the main bridge leaving Raccoon. It was an architectural marvel. Hailed as a "window to a new world of visual splendor."

As they stood on it, looking down, it was a window to a new world of visceral horror.

The main bridge was loaded with the dead. It was shoulder to shoulder like a club that was passed occupancy. It was clearly where everyone had gathered trying to seek asylum and escape before the army had closed the bridge and cut off the ferry. There was no in or out now. There was no escape. They'd trapped these people on the bridge and left them for dead.

Most of them were. They were dead - or undead.

A safe haven had become a hopeless breeding ground for horror. There were things out there that Claire couldn't make sense of as she stared. Babies swaddled in filthy diapers that gnawed like tiny beasts on the ankles of the grown. There were a handful of people still alive - silenced by the glass tube in which they stood- watching as blood sprayed and the living joined the dead.

A woman was half thrown over the hood of a car, screaming and kicking, even as her body was split by fingers that dug into the flesh of her belly and pulled the sticky strands of her intestines free from the exposed cavity to the lips of the dead like an appetizer. Claire watched her face as she jerked, spasming, and died twitching and weeping.

But she was still alive as she watched them begin to devour her innards. She was still alive to see them eat her.

Somebody was weeping softly. Cindy - mostly likely. It was something horrible to see, that was for sure.

Claire turned away, unable to keep staring. Her hands were trembling. She bumped into Leon who was standing slightly behind her. His gloved palm turned over and gripped hers, even though they didn't look at each other. But it worked. For both of them. The trembling eased up in her hands and the sweat on his spine cooled down.

She whispered, "...thanks. I'm ok."

"Yeah?"

"...yeah."

They both let go.

They moved down the stairs on the opposite end of the breezeway. She'd loved it as a girl. Chris had stood there with her when he'd gotten the job in S.T.A.R.S., arm around her shoulders. "Kid - this is it. We're on our way to better things. It's college for you, Claire Redfield. Make me proud and change the world."

She'd laughed and shook her head, "No pressure, right?"

"You kidding? Nothing but pressure. I'm paying for this show, C-Bear. You better entertain me."

Raccoon City wasn't their heaven - it was a doorway to hell.

On the other side of the breezeway, a handful of emergency workers were waiting. They were suddenly looking at a possible escape again. Maybe.

They lucked into an ambulance looking for survivors. The driver was happy to let them aboard. Sadly, the roads were such a complete disastor...it was impossible to go anywhere significant.

The truck didn't get far before they hit the blocks around the city.

Car crashes and burning buildings and piles of bodies became usual scenery. No one in the back of the truck spoke much when it finally came to a final halt or when the man opened the doors and said, "You'll have to walk from here."

The group emerged onto the street and tried to get their bearings.

Claire thought they weren't too far from the station. It was just around the next street corner.

She said, "If we head that way we can get to the station."

Kevin was already nodding, digging through the truck with Mark and Alyssa and David, looking for extra weapons.

"We could run up and across the footbridge to get to Main Street but it's probably a mad house over there. If we stick to the alleys, they'll take us right out beside the station."

Claire nodded and accepted the gun he handed her. It looked like Mark's gun so she figured it was another Beretta.

Yoko was holding a slim barreled gun that looked like a revolver.

George had been given another shot gun and was loading it while he waited.

Jim was stuffing mags for his hand gun into his jean pockets and the pockets on his work uniform.

David had found a slim black duffel bag and was loading it with extra ammunition and anything else he could find.

Leon was putting extra rounds into Yoko's backpack and into the pockets of his uniform.

Claire took her queue from them and started stuffing magazines into a small fanny pack that she clipped to her hip, as Cindy filled her smock with bandages and other medicines.

They were all thinking pretty much the same thing. This might be the last chance they got to stock up.

When they all had a gun and were loaded down with anything that could handle, Kevin said, "This way."

And they all started walking again.

Claire tried to assimilate what her life had become in the last hour. A nightmare, a mad dash for safety.

She was running on adrenaline and fear for herself, her new found friends, and Leon.

She wondered if it was just Raccoon or if everywhere was experiencing some kind of freak show. She wondered if her friends were safe. She thought about calling them and decided against it. If they were safe, she didn't want them worrying about her. If they weren't…

She shook the thought away and kept walking. Now wasn't the time.

The alley opened into a street on the opposite side.

Kevin swept out first, scanning the area with his .45 raised and Leon echoed him, covering the other side as they moved toward the connecting alley. With a raise of his hand, Kevin signaled the others to follow and they did, quickly, all as fast as their feet would carry them.

The next alley would take them out right by the station. Just a quick run across the courtyard and they'd be there.

Claire felt the adrenaline becoming hope and it scared her. She didn't want to believe too strongly that Chris was there.

They ran through the next alley way and emerged out into the courtyard of the R.P.D. station.

Something was burning not too far away. The sky was wavering with inky darkness. Claire could smell the stink of rotting meat and turned as a cannibal started toward her. It was wearing an R.P.D. uniform and moaning.

She had a moment to blink and it's disgusting hands were in her hair. She screamed and pulled back as Kevin fired. But the shot was too tight and it hit the shoulder of her attacker and simply half spun it to the left.

Claire cursed, "I ain't your chew toy, you asshole!" And lifted the Beretta to fire point blank between its rotting teeth.

Blood splattered on her face and staggered, wiping quickly at her face, making sure to keep her eyes and mouth closed. She didn't want any of it noxious blood in her open cavities. If it was anything like A.I.D.S. it would spread through blood contact.

Leon grabbed her; pulled her back into his arms.

"Are you alright?" He took her face and wiped at it with the sleeve of his uniform. "Claire?"

"I'm fine. None in my eyes or mouth. I'm okay."

There was a trembling in his hands as he touched her. She felt it and looked at his face. A rain drop hit the end of his nose and dangled, pretty and sparkling in the muted light. His damn face was kinda perfect...save for that nose. What was the nose? Jewish ancestory?

He looked like a model and she looked like a hot mess. What did it matter where his nose came from? It didn't matter. His fingers curled her chin to the light to inspect her face. "Any of this blood yours?"

She shook her head, watching the moonlight reflect in his eyes. "...no. It didn't get me. It's not fast enough for that. I think we can out smart them easily enough, don't you? They're legion...but dumb."

He nodded, scanning her chest now. She felt a little flush creep up her neck when his eyes dipped to her breasts. He was looking for wounds, she knew that. She did. But it pissed her off to feel the blush happen.

Her hand gripped at his wrist. He was too close. He was making this quest to find her brother about him. It needed to stop. She pushed away from him, shaking her head.

It didn't matter. Nothing mattered but getting to the station, getting to safety.

They started moving again.

There were loud booms from the far side of the courtyard as Alyssa and George took down three more shambling monstrosities.

They ran up a flight of stairs and were at the main doors of the station.

A burning squad car sat off to one side, a testament to how safe the station really was.

With little more then a glance at it, Claire hurried to the front doors.

But there was no getting into that building. Not yet. Not like this. There was nothing you could do but stare in horror.

They weren't alone in the courtyard.

There was a man in the courtyard who looked both frightened and ill. He was limping across the grass toward the door. Claire could just make out the S.T.A.R.S. badge on his chest when he turned abruptly.

It was Brad Vickers - the pilot for Alpha Company.

It was almost too far to discern much but she could hear him yelling. He started running, as best as he could, toward the doors.

Claire started to call to him and stopped when Leon jerked her back into his front and put his hand over her mouth. She struggled for a moment before she stopped. Everyone else was ducked, hunkered down, shivering and hiding. There was a reason for that.

Something was pursuing Brad across the yard.

It was at least nine feet tall and looked like it was trying to be human except it's face was disgusting with exposed gums and sharp looking teeth in a grey face.

There were things poking out of it too, things that looked like snakes…no tentacles. It had tentacles that waved around it's body as it moved.

Claire whispered, "We have to help him!"

But George and Jim were shaking their heads. Kevin was sharing looks with Leon. They were both thinking the same thing - they weren't sure how you fought something that had a machine gun for an arm.

"No way!" Jim hissed and was already moving quietly to the other alley. "We don't know him! But it ain't lookin for us! Let it get him and we can RUN! Right now!"

Claire struggled in Leon's grip, "I know him! He works with Chris! Please!"

She wanted to help, wanted to look away but she couldn't. It was like a car crash, you just kept staring.

It picked the man up by his head with one giant paw and shook him once, like a cat with a mouse.

Claire started fighting in earnest when it raised him to eye level. She couldn't help it, she was afraid for the man, for herself, for Chris and what this meant that this THING was here - in the courtyard- of the only safe place in the city.

Brad squealed like a pig in its grip. He jerked. The scent of urine spilled sharp and sweet around him as he wet his pants in abject fear.

Claire shoved away from Leon and raised her gun. He finally broke with his own fear and stepped into the low light from the street lamps. Kevin echoed him, looking pale but determined. The three of them opened fire on the thing clutching its prey in one hamlike fist.

And it spoke. The monster? It SPOKE. No...it roared.

"STARRRRZZZZZ!" Garbled, booming, it's triumphant bellow echoed through the skyline. Claire quaked with fear as she filled it full of bullets - and it never even twitched.

Claire screamed, "OVER HERE! YOU ASSHOLE! YOU BASTARD! DROP HIM!"

It didn't drop him. It was determined. Brad kicked and moaned, purpling as he choked, gasping and jerking while he strangled. Claire braved getting closer and Leon shouted at her, "Don't! You stay right there!"

"I KNOW him!" She made a desperate wave of her arms to try to distract the monster. But it didn't care. It didn't care about anything but what it was holding.

It reared back that horrible tentacle that was its arm. Claire fired twice into its face and Leon put one right into its temple. But it didn't matter.

It just...didn't.

It stuck one of the tentacles straight through the Brad's throat while he screamed. It exploded out the back of his neck in a squelching pop of sound and blood. Jim panicked and threw up in the bushes, wretching. Claire nearly collapsed onto the ground in horror - but Leon dragged her back from the monster and one arm threw her toward the alley. Brad gurgled wetly, his body jerked, shook, and went still.

It was over. Brad was dead. The stench of soiling himself filled the air. Brad Vickers had died like a coward - pissing and shitting himself.

And the giant monster turned, seemed to be still for a moment, as if it were listening for something. Claire started to lift her gun and Leon knocked her hands down. He jerked her arm so hard it snapped into her numb brain and made her gasp. He threw her behind the dumpster in the alley and pressed her into the shadows, throwing his hand over her mouth.

Cindy hunkered down, just barely looking over the edge of the dumpster. She whispered, "Oh please go away. Don't come here."

It turned and she swore it looked right at her with it's ugly black little eyes.

A flash of movement at the end of the alley had Leon turning his head. In the dying moonlight, in the pouring rain, a woman stood in the flicker of lightning. Beautiful, wearing combat boots and a vest. She tilted her head at him. He blinked at her.

And the monster in the courtyard roared his battle cry one more time, "STARZZZZ!"

The beautiful woman breathed, "Protect her!"

Claire jerked in his arms, "...Jill!?"

And the woman yelled again, "Run Claire! You hear me!? RUN!" She took off into the rain, sprinting like she had wings on her feet.

Claire shouted again, "JILL!"

She struggled to get away from him and he held her against the wall, effortlessly. She rolled her shoulders like she'd drop her arm to break his hold and it was too late. The monster was coming for them.

She didn't shove him away, she dragged him in by his vest against her, holding on now. His nose ended up right beside hers. Their eyes locked and held. Terror beat like butterfly wings between them.

The world tilted as the monster gave chase. It passed right behind Leon by inches. Claire clung to his vest, shaking. He kept staring at her face even as she watched the horror and the fear flash over him.

But it didn't care about any of them.

It didn't care.

It wanted Jill.

It wanted...

Claire breathed, softly, "S.T.A.R.S." It wanted Jill Valentine...it wanted her brother.

She turned her face up to Leon in the rain. She fisted his vest and vowed, "I will find my brother. I have to find him. Do you understand? That thing? It's after the S.T.A.R.S. It's after my brother. I have to protect him. Help me...please help me."

His eyes coveted her face, seeking the answers that neither of them posessed. What else could he do here?

He opened his mouth to answer - and a baying howl lit up the night around them. The monster had left...but the battle was just beginning. Because a pack of dogs was racing toward them. Rotting, grotesque - split skin and exposed sinew and bone. They drooled and dropped flesh as they ran, baying for blood.

There was no station for them. There was nothing but terror.

They split up - the group divided - the desperate chase beginning. Leon and Claire, Cindy and Kevin - the only four around the dump. They just...ran. They ran like the hounds of hell were chasing them. Because, at this moment, they really, really were.

* * *

 **Post Note:** _I am completely happy to work with a beta reader if someone would like to catch my little errors. I try and fail, to read out loud to myself sometimes but anyone who knows me, knows I work like 1000 hours a week. So when I do find time to write, I don't often catch my own little errors. I never take insult to the suggestion of help._


	7. Eight Legged Freaks

**Raccoon City**

* * *

 **Raccoon City, Pennsylvania**

 **September 26, 2018 –**

 **Eight Legged Freaks**

* * *

There wasn't much choice when you were being chased by rotting, rabid dogs. They veered into the open street and toward the subway. It became survival: simply a matter of keep running, keep moving, and hope to god they found a door to stop the pursuit.

In a good horror movie, this might be the moment when the hero made a stupid decision to be brave and self sacrificing. Leon Kennedy was not that hero. He was, however, the kind who didn't mind barking orders above the din of howling hell hounds.

"SUBWAY! NOW!"

Without missing a beat, Kevin shouted back, "No thanks! I'm more of a burger guy!"

Well, he'd meant the subway _station..._ but sadly they were currently racing passed what had once been the Subway restaurant. It was ramsacked and overturned, the glass shattered and littered with garbage and tossed furniture. Apparently, as with any mass hysteria event, people would still be found looting in the middle of the chaos.

Did they steal a footlong? He was hoping they didn't waste time stealing a six inch sub.

His mind tittered even as he fled in the pouring rain.

Jokes. How in the world was that ok!?

And yet?

Leon laughed, hating himself for it. But the world was still turning. They were still alive. Laughter and bad jokes might be the only damn thing that kept them that way. But even the humor eventually ran out.

A boom of thunder and a jolt of lightning split the sky, blinding him briefly. Leon stumbled in the rain and Claire jerked at his vest to sling him forward. Kevin and Cindy hit the stairs to the Birkin Street station entrance and raced down.

Claire was two steps in when the first dog leaped. It caught Leon in a full tackle and took them both to the ground. But it didn't get a chance to go for his throat - she blasted it off the top of him with a yelp and burst of blood. Her hand shot down and jerked on his to pull him up.

They practically flew down the stairs into the dark with the dogs roaring after them.

Kevin yelled, "JUMP!"

They jumped. It was pitch black in the tunnel they were in. But they jumped. Leon must have seen better in the dark, because he grasped the ledge and pulled himself up. His hand shot down and caught hers in mid swing. She kicked her legs and missed losing a foot to dog.

Kevin pulled Leon up and Cindy anchored Claire as the dogs snarled and paced and roared below them in the dark.

Cindy and Claire leaned on each other for a moment, relearning how to breathe. Leon and Kevin seperated to lean as well. They gathered their wits and Cindy said, "Jesus...we lost everyone."

Kevin remarked, "We have to assume they're safe somewhere. We have to."

She nodded, looking sick to her stomach. Leon flipped on the light on his gun, giving them a narrow beam of yellow to see in the dark. He aimed it around, trying to get their bearings.

They were in the service tunnel over the subway tracks. It was long and cylindrical. It was little more than fans with enormous blades and ladders on each end.

Kevin moved to the end and glanced over, looking into the dark beyond. He mused, "Nothing over here that I can see but black."

Claire sighed, shaking her head, "I need to get back to the station. These tracks run together somewhere worthwhile. Can we loop around to get back there?"

Leon glanced at the map he pulled up on her phone. He studied it, looking flushed with exertion but alert. "They run east of the zoo and loop around toward the hospital. If we follow them, we can take the tunnel out by the zoo and head back to the station via the alleys there."

Claire nodded, gathering herself. "The dogs are all down there now. So hopefully it'll be clear."

Kevin shrugged, "Only one way to find out. Ready?"

No. But what choice was there?

Leon grappled down, into the darkness and the stench.

The minute he stepped into water that stunk like three day old diapers, he knew they weren't alone.

Something was down here; waiting, watching.

There was a soft splash as Claire landed next to him.

Leon whispered, "Don't move. Don't say a word."

He felt, more than saw, Kevin freeze on the ladder.

There was a sound, something close to a shuffle. He'd heard it once, as a boy, but it had been faint and close to his ear while he slept.

Spiders.

From the rapidly increasing loudness of the shuffling, he knew they were bigger than the ones of his youth and hell of lot more dangerous. It was luck more then instinct that had him grabbing Claire and pulling her with him off to one side. She squeaked in surprise and he pulled her back against him, putting his back against the wall, one hand over her mouth to keep her silent.

This seemed to be the way they were going to spend their evening - pressed together in fear with his hand over her mouth.

There was a splash, quiet, soft. Kevin? Cindy? Or one of the spiders?

A loud rustling of water, steadily increasing. Something was coming.

There was a beam of light shining. Someone had a flash light.

Leon caught a glimpse of a thousand shining eyes less then six feet from him and barely had time to lift his gun before it leaped.

For a moment, he was frozen in shock as it went up and up and up, at least ten feet above his head where it stuck to the ceiling like silly putty.

The light from Leon's flashlight was too thin, too small to do more then show a suggestion of legs, a rounded bubble of a belly covered with hair and all those horrible eyes.

Leon shoved Claire, lightly. "Run!"

Footsteps splashed loudly as they run, unsure what they were running toward, convinced they wouldn't be able to climb back up in time.

Someone yelled, the flashlight swerved to see on a spider on top of Kevin.

The darkness flashed bright as someone fired. Claire? Kevin? He couldn't tell.

The spider was making a high pitched sound.

Leon moved through the nasty water that was at least waist deep. Too slow, too damn slow.

Cindy was yelling now. "He's fine! Keep going!"

Someone was next to him. Leon grabbed their arm and pulled them with him. There was a rise up ahead, he could just make it out in the darkness. He jumped without thinking, running as fast as he could.

The person cried out as they hit the ground, already rolling.

Leon did his best to protect the person in his arms as they rolled, hit a stairway and kept going.

At the bottom, his back sore, they finally rolled to stop.

He was on the bottom, someone cradled safely atop him.

Claire's voice said in his ear, "You better stop manhandling me, you jerk." But she didn't move off him. She kinda...clung. It was almost a hug. As they both relearned to breathe.

He held her like that, just a moment as the fear danced away. She was a strange chic, always being tough and mouthy, and then grabbing hold of him to ground her. What was funny, was that he was kinda the same way.

Then she was climbing off him, helping him up.

"Are you okay?"

"Uh-huh." She shivered, "Nasty ass bugs."

"No shit."

Feet were pounding down the stairs. Two sets? Three? He couldn't tell.

A minute later a flashlight beam came over the rise and started down the stairs, bobbling as Kevin ran.

Cindy panted, "Fuck! It almost got me. Thanks."

A cool female voice remarked, "No problem."

The light floated over. "You guys okay?"

"Yeah." Leon studied the girl on Kevin's side. Young. Lots of blonde hair. He narrowed his eyes in the dark but was having trouble placing her.

Claire's voice shook, just a little. "Let's get out of here."

There were on solid ground again but it was pitch dark and impossible to tell which way they needed to go.

Kevin said, "Leon, point the light that way."

Leon stood while the light went away, far away down the corridor. His hand was wrapped around his gun, his ears open. The spiders couldn't be that far away.

There was a loud buzzing, like the sound of a bug hitting a light, and then lights started to flicker on overhead.

Emergency lights, red and ominous.

The stairway was about six feet away. Leon looked up and realized they'd rolled down at least thirty steps. Yikes. They were lucky as hell. Lucky neither one of them had any broken bones.

The blonde was at the far end of the corridor standing by what looked like a fusebox.

How'd she known there would be circuit breaker there?

It didn't matter but it pretty much confirmed what they already knew. They were in the subway. They were surrounded by monsters. They were on their own. And they weren't the last people alive in this city.

This girl proved it.

They started toward her and she gave Kevin his pen light back.

"We're in the eastern line tunnel," She said quietly, "I got a look at the map on terminal wall when I got here earlier. This line runs under the z-."

Leon finished for her, "The zoo. We know."

She gave him a cold look. Curious about it, he arched a brow at her. She shook her head, "Thanks. I already knew that."

Kevin shook his head and glanced at Cindy.

She looked frightened but unharmed.

"Did something bite you?"

She shook her head no. Claire studied the other girl in the red lights. "Who are you?"

She cocked her hip, laughing. "Ask him."

Surprised, Leon shrugged. "Should I know?"

And the girl laughed, sharply, "You should. Considering you spent all last night up to your balls in me. I'm Elza. Elza Walker."

Right. ELZA. Not Elsa. Elza Walker. His one night stand. Of all the horrible coincidences in all the world...this is the one that cropped up. Kevin coughed. Cindy looked amused now. Claire managed to look disgusted.

Leon mused, "In my defense, I was totally fucking drunk last night."

Claire shook her head, "That's your defense? You're always fucking drunk."

He gave her a filthy look, "No, I'm not. I was just drunk last night..."

"And tonight."

"No," He shook his head, starting forward, " ** _Tonight_** I was hung over."

Kevin laughed. Cindy chuckled. Elza Walker was NOT amused. She paced behind the group, looking pissed.

Claire stepped up beside him, "Well, maybe you could lay off the sauce and your search for pussy long enough to help keep us alive."

Oy. She was something else. Her snarky little attitude grated on his nerves. What was her problem here? She acted like he'd spent last night in her.

The image didn't help things. It lingered in the perverted part of his brain that had no place here in the middle of this mess. So, to counteract that, his voice hissed at her.

He gave her narrow eyes, "Because I haven't so far?"

She shrugged a shoulder. "So far all I've seen is bad driving, pretty good shooting, and alot of manhandling. Maybe big boobs back there likes that, but the rest of us? We prefer sober cops over drunk ones playing hero."

He paused, staring at her. She realized he'd stopped walking and turned back to him. Annoyed, he laughed without humor and walked passed her.

"You know what? You do what you want from this point on, princess. Seriously. You've been nothing but a bitchy pain in the ass since I met you. You think you're so fucking tough? Go off on your own. But remember, you asked ME for help. You did that. So if that's what want, start acting like it. Otherwise? Get outta my way. Because following a ladies lead just isn't my style."

Claire rankled, licking her teeth. She hissed, angry now, "You are such an asshole. Seriously. You think I asked you to play the white knight? I could use your help, but I don't need you to lead me, you arrogant...MAN."

There. The perfect insult.

They glared at each other for so long that finally, Kevin remarked, "You two either work it out or get a room. The rest of us don't have time for this shit."

Elza laughed, glaring at them. "Exactly. He's not good for much else but fucking, honestly. So best of luck to you, girl."

He was officially in hell. Somewhere between a pissed off one night stand and a bossy chore of a woman who couldn't wait to see him finished off. At this particular point, in the grand scheme of how shitty his life had become, he was wishing he'd taken the job back home. He'd wanted adventure, by god, and he was getting it.

With a side helping of estrogen courtesy of two pissy females looking to castrate him and wear his balls for earrings. At this juncture, he was not at all fond of women.

Claire shoved into a walk, muttering under her breath. Leon took up the rear of the group, pissed. She was such a pain in the ass. He couldn't wait to get away from her. She was a baby, honestly, not even old enough to drink.

He was hoping they found her brother soon so he could dump her off and get rid of her.

He hated that he watched her ass in those stupid jeans she wore as she walked. Her stupid butt looked like two pringles hugging. He sighed. Indirectly, he was being a huge dick to her because she'd sorta ruined his life by simply existing. It was unfair, ill-timed, and immature. He sighed again, resolved to letting her be a bitch to him to atone for his own mistakes.

Claire muttered darkly. Asshole cop. He'd been a total jerk since the moment she met him. First he blames her for his bad driving. Next he ARRESTS her for - nothing. For nothing at all. Now he was being all arrogant and pushy and...penis having boy like...she sighed, smirking at herself. He acted like she needed saved. What year was this?! She wasn't sitting her tower waiting for a hero. She couldn't wait to get away from him.

The second they hit the RPD, she was bailing on his ass.

The ass in question passed by her at the subway interchange. She hated herself for watching it move. She hated even more that she liked his ass at all. He was fucking gorgeous, which annoyed her. He was funny, which made her feel funny in her pants. He was a PIG, which made her want to strangle him. He was a terrible driver with a fantastic eagle eye and a kind of bravery that impressed her.

She hated him.

She kinda liked him.

Claire paused, blinking. Yep. She liked him. She was crushin on him a little. Which was likely why she was being such a thunder cunt to him. It was her reaction to liking a guy. She tried to drive him away to see if he'd stick around.

As if either of them had time for that kind of thing now anyway.

It was entirely irrelevant but, at the same time, she was a good person underneath the blanket of sarcasm and bravado. She was. She eased up beside him as he cleared around the corner of the tunnel. It galled, but she muttered, "Listen...I'm sorry about before."

Surprised, Leon glanced down at her. A quiet moment passed and he remarked, "...it's ok. I think we're all acting like assholes. Adrenaline, right?"

Claire chuckled a little, shrugging, "I'll be nice - if you stop trying to save me."

He lifted the corner of his mouth a little, "Deal. Work with me here, Claire, and we can help keep each other alive."

She nodded, taking up position at his flank, "Fair enough. Ready?"

They nodded off and cleared the corner into the next line. Empty - it offered a stifling chill that didn't really elicit any kind of hope. It smelled moldy and dank down here. It wasn't looking promising that they'd come upon any other survivors any time soon.

They eased into the main area of the track and the silence was pervasive. The threat down here was minimal. Apparently the dead were too dumb to seek seclusion beneath the city. The metamorphosis of the spiders was frightening enough, implying that the virus was cross species, and wouldn't just stop at the induction of human DNA.

Claire paused, considering. How did she know it was a virus? Why that?

Apparently, three semesters of pre-med classes made her a virologist. She wasn't sure what it was about them, but the point of origin being blood contact via bite or exposure...it said infection. It said virus. The question was how? Where had it come from? Was it naturally occuring here? What could possibly have started the spread?

There was a soft gasp as Cindy avoided a rat eating garbage between two railroad ties. Claire looked at the rodent, blinking. _That's the answer right there_. She was nearly positive.

Aloud, she mused, "Vermin."

Leon glanced at her over his shoulder. The light from the flickering emergency bulbs overhead cast him in a nearly filtered shadow. She shook her head, moving up to join him.

"Trying to figure out how this damn thing spread."

He nodded, studying the dark as they head toward the access door to the far side of the tracks. According to the map, it should lead them easily through the employee quarters and bring them out on the other side, closer to the station and the right terminal.

"You're thinking vermin? The rats bite turned that man back at the bar."

Observant. He noticed it too. She gave him an approving glance, "Yeah. It spreads that way, clearly. And crosses species."

Behind them, Kevin added, "Putting aside my intense desire for a smoke, what the hell kind of virus can cross species?"

Claire figured Rebecca Chambers would come in real handy right about then. To her surprise, Leon answered, "SARS." He caught Claire looking at him as he eased open the employee door and cleared into the locker room, "What?"

"Nothing. Just...you're right."

He shrugged once. "I wasn't always planning to be a cop."

Cindy gave him a small smile as they moved into the locker room and were surrounded by the smell of bleach and disinfectant. Without prompting, each person moved to check the lockers for supplies. Elza found a bottle of perfume and spritzed herself, sighing with pleasure to end the smell of horror on her.

Kevin shook his head, "Ok. Some we know that some viruses can jump species. I've seen Outbreak too. But how? In this case? How so fast?"

Leon opened a locker and dug inside. He pulled free a dry jacket in pale pink and handed it to the shivering Cindy to put on over her soaked uniform. Finally, after a moment, he said, "Cross- **species** transmission, or spillover, is the ability for a foreign **virus** , once introduced into an individual of a new host **species** , to infect that individual and spread throughout a new host population. ... It can also occur between **species** with low contact rates but usually through an intermediary **species**."

Claire stopped digging to stare at him. It took a moment, but he realized that everyone was now.

"What?" It sounded defensive.

Elza remarked, "You look like a model. I don't think anyone expected you to be..." She trailed off.

Offended, Leon slammed the locker. "Smart?"

Claire winced a little. "I'm sorry. I'm an asshole, because I had the same thought."

Kevin snorted, shaking his head, "Turns out being a judgmental asshole cuts both ways. We think blonde girls is dumb. Girls think hot guys are stupid. Fail."

Claire rose. "I'm really sorry. I seem to be saying that alot."

Leon shrugged and moved to the far door. "It's fine. I chose to be a cop to prove I was a tough guy. But I would have been a pretty good scientist I think."

Claire gave him a small smile, "I get the feeling you'd be pretty good at most anything."

They stare at each other for a second too long, as Cindy laughed lightly and Kevin cleared his throat. Claire jumped a little and flushed. Leon eased open the door with pink cheeks.

Elza, glancing between them, finally made a small sound of surprise. "O-M-G! _You_ are Claire. You're _her!"_

Claire blinked, shrugging once. "So?"

Leon cleared into the next room and they followed, Kevin taking up the rear. This one was the bunk room where employees could chill out on break. It was ratty bunk beds and old magazines. Someone had left their tablet on the table but it was dead. The table was littered with cigarette butts.

It smelled vaguely of nacho cheese and day old orange soda.

Elza added, "The whole time he was on top of me, he kept calling me Claire. He kept wishing I was you!"

It rang in the quiet room.

It was official, he was in hell.


	8. Pesticide

**Raccoon City**

* * *

 **Raccoon City, Pennsylvania**

 **September 26, 2018 –**

 **Pesticide**

* * *

It was a moment, that was for sure. A horrible one. An awkward one. Claire froze. Leon froze. Kevin dropped the tablet with a clatter of sound. Cindy giggled and tried to hide it.

And Elza shouted, "Were you pretending I was this fat bitch?!"

Proving he was the dumbest man alive, Leon Kennedy found himself trapped in a small employee lounge in a burning city with a one night stand gone wrong, the girl he'd lost his first love over, a waitress and a colleague - and the worst embarrassment he'd ever known.

Claire and Elza shared a dark look and Claire laughed. She didn't shout at all. In fact, she whispered, "Who you calling fat!? At least I don't look like a ten year old boy with an eating disorder! How much you pay for those tits anyway? We can all smell the silicone from a hundred yards."

"At least mine don't sag to my waist...you blubbery assed bull dyke cow!"

Kevin tried not to choke on the laugh that he failed to stifle. Surprisingly, Cindy hissed at Elza, "How old are you!? What the fuck is wrong with you to pick a fight like this in the middle of a nightmare!?"

"Not as old as _you,_ you wrinkley faced dinosaur hag!"

Claire shook her head, barely holding in the snort. "...good lord, it's like dealing with a pubescent tween pop star." She gave Leon a long look, "You have horrible taste in girls."

That was rapidly becoming clear to everyone.

Proving she was light years smarter than the shrieking Elza, Claire delivered her insults quietly and succinctly. What had Leon called Elza? Claire 1.5. Turns out? He was kinda right.

Elza shouted, "She's not even pretty!"

Now that was just not true. Claire rolled her eyes, ignoring her.

Leon figured he was officially in hell. Officially. Kevin shook his head and grabbed Elza, roughly, shaking her, "Now isn't the time for this shit!" He hissed, "Shut up! You forget we're ass deep in alligators here? You're in here bellowing at the top of your stupid lungs like an idiot...shut the fuck up!"

She opened her mouth to retort and the sound found them. It was a scuffling. It was a shuffling skitter. It moved around the ceiling like something was above them. It shifted around the wall like something was inside of it. Not zombies. It couldn't be zombies.

Elza hissed and flipped Claire the finger, "Look what you did bitch! We get outta here, I'm going to cover your ass in angry tweets. You are _dead_ on social media! You hear me? You and stupid red hair - boxed dyed hair, saggy tits, and your tank ass. You look like the fat chic on _Mad Men!_ "

Claire just looked confused now. She glanced at Cindy, "Was there a fat chic on _Mad Men_?"

Cindy shrugged, "Joan?"

Claire shook her head, "Joan - I fucking wish I was that fat." She signaled with her hands to her breasts, "That chic is gorgeous."

Cindy mused, "You do kinda look like her. But prettier!"

Claire chuckled softly.

Elza shrieked, "DON'T YOU IGNORE ME, YOU BITCHES!"

She was going to get them killed. If someone didn't smack this girl down, she was going to get them killed with her banshee wails. Claire shoved Leon with her hand on his arm, "Shut her up, Kennedy. Now. Hurry!" She hissed it, giving him a dirty look.

Leon spat at Elza, "Shut up! For god's sake, focus on what matters here!"

"It mattered when you were fucking me like one of those dogs back there! It mattered then, more than THOT." She pointed to Claire.

Cindy looked confused, "What's THOT?"

Elza shouted, "It means THAT WHORE OVER THERE!" She sneered it, "God, you guys are so old! Seriously just... **skurt**!"

Cindy mused, "What? What's that?"

"It means beat it! GOOD GOD! I'm surrounded by illiterates. I told my fam last night that this cop over here was straight fire. I thought maybe we'd get lit and smash and hang the next day. But nope...he just flopped around on top of me calling for this pig with red hair over here and passing out like an emo chic. I cannot BELIEVE I'm stuck in this nightmare with you dumb asses. Seriously."

Claire scoffed and turned away, "Nobody asked you along. Think you can do better? **Skurt**."

Cindy laughed softly. Elza shrieked, "You sound so stupid when you try to talk cool!"

Kevin gave her a disgusted look, "Pot, kettle, you stupid girl. How fucking old are you?!"

Elza slapped him away, "Seventeen, you old geezer. Not that it's any of your damn business. Ask this cop over here if he cared last night. I didn't see him checking my I.D. while we were fucking behind that bar."

Well, hell had more than one layer apparently.

Seventeen. It was official - Leon Kennedy was a cradle robber, an idiot, and a cheater. He was also exactly what Claire said - the world's dumbest asshole about women. He was also done with this loud mouth bitch inviting trouble down on them. Dumb as clown shoes or not, he wasn't going to die for a crappy one night stand. He opened his mouth to say something and the door shivered. It shivered twice.

Something wanted in - badly.

Kevin shoved the stupid teenage girl away, giving her a filthy look. Cindy flipped her off. Claire rolled her eyes. Apparently, _everybody_ hated Claire 1.5.

Instead of cursing Elza out, he gestured with his head and comannded, "Out this door, quietly."

But that wasn't happening either. The door was locked. They were trapped unless they found the key. The door they'd come through shivered again. Like something was trying to break in.

Like something heard them, or smelled them, or wanted to eat them...or fuck their empty eye sockets. Jesus. The fear curled around them like snakes.

Claire hissed, "Keep checking pockets and lockers! Find the key! Hurry!"

It didn't matter anymore what stupid drama was happening. They were all together as a team. They started digging, fast and scared. But the door shivered and cracked, telling them they were out of time.

Leon commanded them again, low and deep, "Get in! Get in the lockers and hide. Hurry!"

They all chose one and leaped inside. Leon and Claire ended up stuffed in the same one out of necessity. She pushed him into the back portion and pressed her back to his front so they could both see out. He kinda got the feeling she was putting herself between him and danger. Maybe.

A little.

Touched, he still wedged his gun up and aimed it at the door. Claire steadied his hands from beneath. His nose bumped the back of her ear. She tilted her face a little to see him in the dark - it was barely lit by the slits in the locker door.

 _Were you pretending I was this bitch!?_ The thought circled in her head. Had he been? Maybe Claire was the name of his long time girlfriend. Maybe Claire was his wife.

Wife. Was he married? Did he have eighteen kids at home waiting for their Daddy? She didn't even know this guy except that he was a piss poor driver with a cute smile who fucked ugly teenage girls behind bars while he was drunk. Admittedly, Elza didn't look that young, and she was only two years younger than Claire anyway...but she acted like a baby. She was an idiot.

She wanted to ask who Claire was. She kinda wanted to know if it was her. Was it her?

It didn't matter. The world fractured to remind her that right now, nothing mattered but what was trying to get into this room to kill them.

His arm brushed hers where it was braced around her. She felt her face pinken and make a liar out of her. It mattered. She didn't like that at all. But it mattered. Worse yet? She was kinda jealous of Elza Walker. Why?

Why else? She'd fucked the clumsy hero cop behind her. Why else would she be jealous? The truth sucked, rankled, and made Claire stiffen against him. He edged back enough to put the slightest distance between their bodies, feeling her tense.

He murmured into her ear, "Sorry. Too close?"

Yeah. Too close. That sounded about right.

Claire whispered, "...just scared."

He nodded, "Me too."

What kind of hero admitted that kind of thing?

It was another thing about him she liked. Young, scared, and willing to run for it when necessary. He was just a rookie on his first day, a newbie, a wet behind the ears beginner. They were both scared shitless and surviving. Claire returned her hands to his, supporting him. The attraction was stupid and irrelevant here. She was acting like a besotted school girl. It was time to act like Chris would - brave, tough, and ready for anything.

 _Chris...I'm coming for you. Stay alive. Wherever you are._

The last locker shut quietly - in the nick of time.

The last one in was Elza. She tugged the door shut a second before the outer one exploded. It hit the far wall in a hammer of sound. They all breathed, still as statues in their hiding spots as something with antenna and a carapace emerged into their sanctuary. It scuffled and sniffed like a dog, bumping the lockers and letting out clangs of metallic sound.

It was the size of a horse but it wasn't. It wasn't a horse. What was it?

Leon narrowed his eyes through the locker slit, studying it. It stopped at Elza's locker, snarfling at the door. It was her own fault, he thought wildly, she was wearing some expensive perfume the pervaded the room.

What was the damn thing?

It turned a little and he caught a glimpse of its face fully. A flea.

It was a flea.

A flea the size of a horse in Raccoon City.

It might have been comic, if it wasn't so stupid. It was also finished with this moment. It rammed the locker where Elza was hiding and she couldn't' contain the gasp of fear. Leon thought, desperately, " _Don't alert anything else! Don't you dare scream!_ "

And Elza shouted, "LEAVE ME ALONE!"

Idiot.

Fool.

Under his breath, he murmured, "Stupid girl."

The break room was suddenly full of zombies. They shuffled in by twos. No one else made a sound in their lockers, as terror spread like a blanket over the common area. Fucked, Leon thought, that's what they all were now. He'd wanted to get fucked last night - and he was fucked now. Big time. His one night stand was, literally, going to get him killed.

The flea rammed the locker again and Elza shrieked, 'GO AWAY!"

Stupid, stupid, stupid girl.

The third ram of the door forced the metal into a warped half circle. It gave her no choice but to spill out of the locker or get crushed. She screamed, scrambling to the floor as she fell on her butt.

The flea chased her over the ground so fast she had little time to do anything but run. She screamed as she ran, like a fool, but it worked like a charm to send the zombies shuffling after her and the flea. When the sounds retreated far enough, Leon and Claire stepped out of the locker.

Cindy hissed first, "We have to help her!"

No one said a word. They all just started digging again to find the key to the door on the other side of the break room. A handful of moments passed and Leon finally rose from crouching by a locker, "She's right. I'll do it. I'll go after her."

Claire gasped, "You kidding?! It's her fault they're all after us!"

He shook his head, "Doesn't matter. It can't matter. We have to help each other. Otherwise we're no better than them."

He turned toward the door. Claire grabbed his arm, halting him. "Leon! You go out there, you're just another victim."

Leon shook her hand free, "I'm a cop, Claire. That's got to mean something. Even now? It's got to mean something."

She grappled at him. "Don't! She's dead, Leon! If you go after her, you are too!"

He gave her a pitying glance, shaking his head, "Don't you get it, Claire? If I stay here and let her die, I'll never be able to live with myself. I have to try. I'm sorry. I'll find you as soon as I can."

He disappeared into the room in pursuit of Elza. Claire started after him and Kevin grabbed her arm to swing her around. "Don't. Stay with us. It's suicide to go after that girl. Stay here."

She wanted to go after him. It tickled in her belly to know it. She wanted to chase Leon Kennedy into the dark. It made her turn back to find the key. She had to find her brother. He had to come first.

He had to.

Or else what was she fighting for?

He raced through the dark, feeling his blood and his breath in his body like twin heartbeats. Lord. He was so afraid. It fairly spilled out of his mouth in a shaky exhale as he turned the corner in the dark with his gun up.

Elza was still screaming down the tunnel. He could track her blind by the sound alone.

He eased around the curve in the tunnel to and caught sight of the struggle. She was pressed into a corner surrounded. There were ten, twenty, thirty zombies and at least three of those horrible, horrible, fleas around her. The ceiling was shuffling shadows that were surely spiders. She was being chased by an army.

She was being chased by a horde. The first zombie got her arm. She fought, screaming high and sharp. It took a mouthful of her forearm in a slurping jerk of flesh and blood. Elza squealed, kicking madly. The flea got her leg, jerking her down in a loud crunch of sound. She was keening like an animal as it went for her side and split her open as if it had take a blade to her belly. One grabbed her skinny arm and pulled.

Even here, he could hear the bone crack and break. Bone and blood, blood and muscle, muscle and sinew - it was a symphony of pain and torture. She was being ripped to pieces. Literally.

Blood splashed the group and set off a riot of hunger. Moans, groans, shuffling and skittering filled the air. A spider dropped to her face and muffled her screaming. The screaming - he'd never forget the screaming. He was frozen in horror, watching her die. Some hero, he thought, he was frozen there in terror.

He moved away from the wall to bravely join the battle to save her. It was the right thing to do. It just was.

A set of hands grabbed him and threw him to the wall. Claire pressed herself against him in the dark, throwing her hand over his mouth. She hissed low, and desperate, "Don't! You idiot! You brave idiot! It's suicide, Leon. It's suicide."

The screaming stopped in a wet gurgle. They heard the sounds of her being torn apart.

Claire's eyes were wide and filled with horror. Huge like a doll in the darkness.

She whispered, "I'm sorry. I'm sorry. I need you, Leon. Stay with me."

He trembled, feeling the nausea claw at his belly and his throat...and he nodded. A coward at the core, it seemed. A coward cop. The guilt nearly made him vomit on the spot.

Claire tugged his arm.

They ran into the dark and left the girl behind.

As they curled into the far tunnel back toward the break room, Leon stopped running and sagged, throwing his hands on his knees to cough. It was a dry, wheezy, pain filled sound. He made a small sound of grief and pain and pushed himself up to spear his hands through his hair.

"Jesus Christ...Jesus Christ...what kinda cop am I? Oh god, I'm gonna be sick."

Claire grabbed his arm, pushing him into the shadows of the tracks. She covered his mouth with her hand again, shaking her head. "Stop it! You hear me? Stop!" They were both breathing fast and hard from running, from fear, from guilt, "Stop it. She knew the risks. She kept on shouting. She RAN, Leon. She ran. Not you. You didn't do this. You didn't."

He shook his head, hating himself. Claire drew her hand down, slowly. He whispered, "She hated me. It's my fault. I used her and she ran and she's _dead_ , Claire. She's dead because of me. She's dead. And I didn't even save her."

Claire whispered, harshly, "You couldn't! You couldn't save her!"

He made a small sound and tears sprung at the corners of his eyes, hurting them both. He gasped, "I didn't even try! I didn't even try! I'm not a cop, Claire, I'm just a coward with a badge."

Claire grabbed his face with both hands, "Don't! Don't talk like that! You saved me! You saved me more than once. You saved those people in that bar with me. You stayed, when I asked, when you could have run away, Leon! You're not a coward! There's nothing cowardly in surviving. There was no hope for her. None. But there's still hope for us! Don't give up on me! Please! I need you!"

If he cried, she'd lose it. She'd cry too. Her brother would die while she stayed in the dark weeping in fear and failure. She couldn't give up. She had to go on. She had to go on and needed him with her. She just did.

She wasn't ready to think about the why.

Two fat tears slipped down his cheeks and he gasped, voice hitching, "You need a hero, Claire. I'm just a rookie. This is my first fucking day. I can't help you."

Claire gripped his uniform in her fists and kinda shoved him against the wall, gently. "Yes, you can! You will! Stop wallowing and help me! Stop! Now!"

He whispered, "I can't. I'm gonna get you killed. It's what I do."

Claire scanned his face, rapidly, and breathed, "Who's Claire?"

He trembled, looking at her, "What?"

"Who's Claire? She said you kept yelling Claire. Who is she? Wife? Girlfriend? Mother?"

Leon's breathing eased back. The change of topic worked like a charm. He wasn't going to break down and sob after all. He was going to be a man, not a sniveling baby. He was. He could do this. He could do this. He could.

Claire filled the silence, "It was me, wasn't it? She was right."

He said nothing, staring down at her.

Finally, she whispered, "...shit. _Shit._ I don't have time for this shit, Leon Kennedy. I don't."

Her hand lifted and swiped at his cheek, swiping the tear away. "I don't have time to hand hold you or coddle you anymore. I need you to man up and let this go. You hear me? I need you."

He finally nodded, slowly, "...alright. You're right. You're so right. I'm sorry. I'll get it together."

She let go of his uniform and paused, torn. Finally, she queried, "...fuck. I have to know. Was it me?"

He almost didn't answer. Almost. But she'd pulled him back from the edge. Honesty felt right here. Even if the timing was piss poor. He murmured, "...yeah. Yeah, it was you. I got her killed because I couldn't stop thinking about _you._ "

Oh. Oh oh oh. Her heart. It danced in her chest. She wanted to kiss him in the dark like a crazy thing. She wanted to know what he tasted like. She wanted to feel his hands in her hair and his breath on her mouth. Lord.

And that would get them both killed.

Instead, she breathed, "...well, I don't want you. Ok? You're not my type. So get over it. And let's survive this nightmare. You hear me?"

She shoved away from him and ran into the dark while he called after her, "Claire! Claire! Wait, wait! Man, why doesn't anyone ever listen to me?"

 _I don't want you -_ she'd said it. She'd said the words.

Why didn't he believe her?

Because she'd been trembling while she said them.

And she'd chased him into the dark to bring him back.


	9. Stampede

**Raccoon City**

* * *

 **Raccoon City, Pennsylvania**

 **September 26, 2018 –**

 **Stampede**

* * *

 **Outside the City Limits...**

* * *

The apartment was empty. He wasn't sure what he'd expected - that she'd be there, that she'd be waiting, that she'd be worried and angry and curse him...any of these things.

He never expected she'd be gone.

There was a note pinned to the fridge and the television was still on for the cat. The place smell like patchouli and incense. Her bedroom was hastily tossed as if she'd fled in a rush.

Where would she have gone? His calls hit her voicemail without ringing. His texts went unanswered. He'd been watching her on the live feed he'd had installed in her living room to be sure she was alright after he'd snuck away to investigate Umbrella.

But a week ago, she'd gone off the feed. He knew why. He'd stopped answering her text messages. He couldn't be sure he wasn't being watched, so he'd cut contact hoping against hope that she just thought he was busy until he could bury his tracks and let her know what was up.

But she'd panicked the second he'd gone out of contact with her. He should have known better. Claire didn't wait. She didn't think. She just reacted. She was impulsive and headstrong and young. She'd gone looking for him, he was certain of that. His only hope was that she hadn't gone far.

The television cut into the programming to show the burning skyline of the city he'd tried to leave behind - and his heart lodged in his throat.

From the air, the helicopter took in the scene as he instructed Alexa to unmute the television and turn it up. The voice popped in with the thunking whir of blades in mid-air, "-estly, Steve. Things are looking dire. Where's FEMA? Where's the President? The disaster in Raccoon City is the worst I've ever seen - and I was present during Hurricane Katrina. This is a nightmare down there. Any word on your end from officials in charge?"

The female anchor replied, as the helicopter circled the clock tower as it plumed smoke into the night air, it was burning...like the city around it. "Not on this end. The last confirmed tweets from the Mayor's office were prayers for safe passage. We had an upload from a bystander showing the paramilitary forces from Umbrella arriving on scene and a potentially uncorroborated photo of the Mayor going down in a zombie wave attack outside the RPD. But there is nothing confirmed yet."

The reporter in the helicopter showed the devastation as he answered, "City Hall is in shambles. It's collapsed on oneside like a huge mole dug under to weaken the wall strength and infiltrate a compound. The only help were getting here is private forces sent in by Umbrella? That's ridiculous. The federal government is really dropping the ball on this mess, Sheila. There are elected officials down there and trapped in that nightmare. They need to get them out."

Sheila answered, as the helicopter circled the park and the sounds of the screams added to the roar of the fires, "It looks post apocalyptic Seth. Any hope of helping folks out?"

The helicopter circled around and the lifted higher, losing the sounds of death the permeated the air. The reporter on the chopper replied, "No hope of that, Sheila. Even if we sat down, we can't guarantee our own safety by doing so. Until we hear from the government, it's best to stay airborne."

Sheila answered, "I agree. Any visual confirmation of a single survivor?"

"So far, no. Sadly, there's not much hope for those stuck on the ground in that hellhole, Sheila. All we can do now is pray."

The helicopter cut left and showed the highway leading into Raccoon. Cars and trucks were over turned and throwing plumes into the ugly rainy sky. But none of that mattered. Because the moment came when he saw what he feared the most: the jacket thrown over the seat of the soft tail with the image of the angel with her wings on fire.

Claire's riding jacket, his baby sister, the one he'd bought her after she'd graduated high school.

His baby sister had gone to Raccoon City to find him.

Standing in her living room, Chris Redfield felt the first roll of terror that nearly killed him where he stood. He put a hand on his chest to check to see if his heart had stopped. Claire was in Raccoon City.

Claire was in the necropolis. Claire was somewhere inside that nightmare.

He moved to her music box with the image of the angel on it. It tinkled happily as he opened it. The terror in his guts turned to dread. Because her pretty little red handled 9 mm was still in that goddamn box.

She'd gone into Raccoon City without a weapon. She was a crack shot, he'd made sure of that. But she'd left behind the only thing that might save her life. His baby sister was in a city of the dead, unarmed, alone, and looking for him.

He picked up the gun and jerked the slide to put a round in the chamber. It was audible in the quiet apartment.

Softly, as the helicopter circled the burning city without hope behind him, he vowed, "Hold on, kid, I'm coming for ya."

* * *

Leon and Claire found Cindy and Kevin waiting for them in the long emergency tunnel that led them toward the outside. No one seemed eager to take the ladder to the street and see where it let out. Apparently, they were apprehensive about what was up and terrified about what was down.

Finally, Claire whispered, "We have to get out of here. There's things in the dark we can't even see."

Jesus.

The terror was palpable.

Proving to himself he was not a coward, even if his bones hurt with shame that he was, Leon went first up the ladder and Kevin took the rear. He eased open the escape hatch at the top and poked his head up like a frog emerging over a lillypad - all eyes and trepidation.

The street was mostly naked. It was a few cars that were ransacked and wrecked, a storefront that was cleaned out and wrecked and swirling security lights with a long dead alarm that had given up on alerting anyone to looters, and the large open entrance to the Raccoon City Zoo. The pretty towering copper statue of a tiger greeted the eyes in a majestic open mouthed roar.

The words beneath informed the viewer that the Zoo operated entirely on donations made by private donors and the benevolence of the Umbrella Pharmaceutical Corporation. There was something taped to the base of the statue that was flickering in the lazy wind. The rain was a smattering pepper of annoying wet now, telling Leon that it wasn't finished making it's presence known quite yet.

There was a jackknifed eighteen wheeler blocking the road up ahead, which meant through the zoo itself was their only real option here.

He pushed out of the escape hatch and kept his gun loose in his hands as Claire and Cindy quickly rose to join him. Kevin brought up the rear with a huff of sound.

After a moment of being free of the stench of the subway, they smells of rot and ruin, rain and scorched sky filled the nostrils. Cindy shivered and Kevin patted her arm sympathetically. Claire picked up the paper taped to the Tiger with her brow furrowed.

"Citizens of Raccoon City - come to the tram station near the front of the zoo. Evacuations are being performed every four hours." She tilted her eyes to the times and glanced at her watch. It was two hours until the next one. "This is the rear entrance. We just need to cross through the zoo to the front gates and you guys can get the hell outta here."

Kevin gave her a narrow look. "What about you? Why stay here?"

Claire shook her head, "I have to find Chris. I have to check the station. I have to. It's what I came here for."

Cindy nodded, look resolute. "I'll stay with you."

Claire shook her head at her, "No way. If this is for real, you need to get the hell outta here. I mean it. The zoo is a short dash to the station. Get me to the front and I'll go the rest of the way on my own."

Leon said nothing, venturing into the zoo far enough that Claire tilted her head at him. "See anything?"

He shook his head, "Nada. Looks clear."

Kevin remarked, "Looks can be deceiving."

And Cindy added, "You got that right. Jesus."

Claire and Cindy kept pace between Leon and Kevin as they moved into the walkway. It was scattered with leaves and papers as if by careless hands. A soft breeze kicked up as they crossed the first set of bathrooms they'd come across in the whole of their journey. The overhang declared itself with dancing monkeys and laughing giraffes. It was adjacent to the "Elephant Cafe" which offered an enormous elephant that created an arch into the restaurant for avid zoo goers with its triumphant trunk.

They paused and Cindy whispered, "I'm sorry...but I really have to pee."

It was a pretty easily agreed upon thing. Leon cleared the women's bathroom and the women went in first. As they washed their hands using sanitizer, Cindy mused, "...do I want to ask about Elza?"

Claire shook her head, catching a glimpse of herself in the dirty mirror above the sink. She was flaked with blood and bruised. She looked tired and scared and exhausted. And guilty.

She looked guilty.

She whispered, "We made her lose her shit and start screaming...and now she's dead."

Cindy rang her hands nervously. She rubbed at her face, shaking her head. "Don't. We can't think that way. We can't."

Claire nodded scrubbing her face with soap and water. No more black eyeliner. No more facade. She was all natural and looked impossibly young staring back at herself. The cuff on her ear jingled musically as she wiped her face with paper towels.

Cindy added, "Was it bad?"

Claire shook her head. She started to speak and her eyes sprang with tears. She made a small sound of denial when Cindy cooed softly, "Oh, honey. It's ok. I'm so sorry."

Claire lifted her hand to stop the hug that was coming. She couldn't have it. She'd fall apart if it happened. She breathed, hoarsely, "I'm ok. I'm _ok. I'm fine."_ She wasn't.

But, by god, she would be.

The door wiggled and Leon looked in on them. "Sorry to bother you. I was just making sure you were ok."

Cindy gave him a sad look. "Alot of that word going around lately. I don't know that we are actually. But we aren't dead."

Leon glanced at Claire, pointedly, "What can I do? Anything?"

She shook her head, flapping her hands in the air as if she were dispelling negative energy. "Nope. I'm ok. I'm alive. I'm here. I'm ready. Let's go."

She moved toward the door and eased out of it. Leon backed up so she could pass him. She paused, hesitated, and finally lifted a hand to pat the front of his bulletproof vest. "Thank you. For checking. I'll be ok."

He nodded silently.

Claire moved to join Kevin at the gate that would lead them into the main thoroughfare of the zoo. It was locked and chained. He was frowning and trying random combinations.

Cindy remarked, "Maybe somebody had the combo? Someone locked it right? So someone got out. Maybe they hid in that restaurant."

It was really their only option. Even if it made the hair on the back of Leon's neck stand up.

The door to the Cafe was unlocked and cracked open. Kevin gestured with his hand to have them stand clear and quietly finished opening it. He cleared into the restaurant first while they waited outside for him.

After a handful of tense moments, he eased back to encourage, "All clear. Come on."

They gathered in the restaurant which was compromised of booths lined with yellow and gray patterns and decorated with elephant curtains in the same colors. The bar was pretty and pale wood and had three registers and a pretzel cabinet that was empty. The kitchen area was open and easily scanned from behind the counter.

There was an office door that was locked to one side that said ZOO MANAGEMENT.

Leon sighed, "The keys in there."

Claire huffed, deeply, "Yup. Let's see if the manager is around here with a key to his office. Otherwise?"

Kevin jiggled the handle. Cindy was already moving into the kitchen to start looking for the key. Kevin mused, "The lock is flimsy enough. I can probably kick the door open."

Leon answered, digging through the register, "Let's limit noise like that until we have to."

Kevin nodded, "Agreed."

Claire was poking around in the cabinets behind the register when the first moan filled the air. It was followed quickly by a clatter and a soft cry from Cindy in the kitchen. There was a handful of seconds before Leon found her on her back with a zombie trying to eat her face. She made a small gasp of fear and pushed at the thing that had once been the manager.

It snapped its jaws at her nose and Cindy mewled in disgust, doing everything she could just to keep from being devoured.

Leon whistled, the zombie jerked, and he kicked it in the side of the head. There was a squelch, a pop, a slurp of skin getting stuck to his boot and Cindy crawled on her butt and hands backward to get out from under it as Leon improvised on sound, grabbed one of the knives off the prep station beside him, and thrust it into the back of crushed skull of the the thing already trying to rise.

It flopped bonelessly to the floor in a congealed splatter of old blood.

It made a rattle of death as it went, and the fetid stench of its breath made him shudder.

Cindy took his hand to rise to her feet, shivering, "...thank you. Sorry. I didn't see it lying there when I came around the corner. It was so strong. It took me down with two hands on my ankles."

Leon patted her elbow a little, "It's ok. Just don't go off alone again, ok? At least not unless you have a gun."

Cindy shook her head, "I can't shoot one. I never have. It's more dangerous to give me one."

He nodded and turned. His hand closed over the hilt of the cleaver on the prep station. He flipped it and offered it to her, hilt first. "This will help."

She took the cleaver, smiling lightly. "Let's hope so."

Considering the moment, Leon knelt down to look in the pockets of the dead body. Sure enough, the key to the office was in his back pocket along with a photo. It was splattered in dried brown blood. Leon was careful not to touch the blood spots as he pulled it free. It left both he and Cindy staring at the note with a dry mouth.

A letter to the woman he'd left behind. Four words: _I'll always love you._

Cindy shook her head, sniffling, as she left the kitchen.

Leon palmed the key and stuck the photo in his back pocket. There was little to no chance he'd find the girl in the photo, but he took the photo anyway, because if he did...she'd want to know. It seemed like the right thing to do.

He opened the office door in silence and they scoured it quickly, looking for anything. As an afterthought, Cindy took the small fanny-pack hanging on the chair filled with cash. It seemed cold, but wasn't, if something happened and they needed it, it seemed unlikely they'd be finding any Square machines or Apple Pay options. Debit cards were officially useless.

So much for modern technology. The only benefit so far was the mad attempts to get the word out before the fall, and even there that was taken as a hoax or a new YouTube phenomenon. No one believed it was real...and now they were all dead. Technology had gotten them all killed in a way, in another - it had simply failed to stop the fall.

The desk drawer came open easily enough when Claire used a letter opener to pop the cheap lock. The key to the gate was there along with an old flip phone. She picked up the ancient thing and opened it, scanning the messages. Apparently it was like a walkie-talkie for zoo employees. It was loaded down with hail mary messages hoping for rescue.

The worst truth of it was in the last few texts.

"Amanda-Moo" texting: You locked us in! YOU BASTARD! YOU COWARD! I hope you rot in hell!

Claire whispered, "He tried to save himself. He locked them in. He locked them in there to die."

Leon shook his head as Claire set the little phone back in the drawer and took the key. Kevin looked sick. Cindy murmured, "Maybe he was stopping something bigger from getting out, Claire. Maybe he had a good reason."

Well, that was terrifying to think considering they were about to head INTO the zoo.

Kevin answered, "The Apple Inn is out the same gate toward the station. They were doing the evacuation there. Originally that was plan. I say we still go there. Now. If the tram is a wash, if it's a death trap in there, let's get the fuck out as fast as we can and get to the Inn."

Claire shook her head, adamantly, "I can't. You know that. I have to find Chris."

Leon responded, "I'm with you. You know that. But let's go to the Inn, Claire. Let's see if there's anyone there that can help us. We know the station is bad off. We know that thing is still there roaming around. You saw the woman it was chasing..."

Claire nodded as they moved to the gate to open it. "Jill Valentine - his partner in S.T.A.R.S. That's what that thing was calling for. It was calling for S.T.A.R.S. It's after my brother. It's after Jill. I can't leave him here. I just can't."

Kevin touched her arm as the lock gave and the gate gaped open a little. "What if he's at the Inn? What if he's there waiting for evac too?"

She paused a moment, considering. If there were groups of survivors at the Inn, he might be there. He'd be where he could help the most, she was sure of that. If he was alive, maybe he was there. Maybe he was there helping people escape. Would it really hurt to check?

She opened her mouth to answer and the first sound of squealing metal split the air.

Cindy breathed, desperately, "Oh...my...god..."

The eighteen wheel spun sideways like someone had kicked it. It hit the far wall of the closest building in a cacophonous scream and flash of sparks and sound. The building shivered and nearly came down from the impact, rocking like a tower of blocks pushed by a clever kid. But that was nothing. It wasn't.

Not compared to what charged behind it.

Dumbo and a herd of gazelle. Dumbo - dripping with rot and disease- roaring and tossing its trunk above a mouth gone naked with infection. Dumbo and the infected gazelle it chased that ran toward them in a stampede of horror.


	10. Moby Dick

**Raccoon City**

* * *

 **Raccoon City, Pennsylvania**

 **September 26, 2018 –**

 **Moby Dick**

* * *

Leon whispered, "...run."

And they already were.

They didn't look. They ran. The barreled into the zoo and Kevin slammed the gate in their wake, wrapping the chain fast and desperate. He was far behind them by the time he took to running in their wake.

It was a bold move to lock the gate. A brave one. And it might get him killed for it.

But it stopped the gazelles that hit it first. They whinnied and squealed, screaming for blood, smashing into the metal in a hoard of hungry frenzy.

At the main concourse for the zoo, a pretty fountain showed a bathing seal spilling water into the sparkling pool beneath his rock. They cut left, around the fountain, racing toward the main gate. Leon couldn't bring himself to look at the exhibit beside him as they ran.

It was broken and warped bars. It was blood splattered all over the dirt and the trees around it. It had once been the beautiful, gentle, wonderful meerkats. It was nothing now but corpses and death.

Thunder rumbled and rain spilled wet and warm down on them as they ran.

The gate didn't last long. They heard it scream, almost like a person, almost like a promise of pain - as Dumbo the mutated elephant tore it down and came for them. A horrible tableau of a freakish circus that Ryan Murphy might have used once in _American Horror Story_. This nightmare didn't end when the show did. It just got worse.

Leon jerked Claire's arm to throw her left as they tried to find a way out of the charging path of the angry African beast. It smashed through concourse on hooves big enough to crush a man. A shambling set of zombies dared to emerge from the corner of the fountain, moaning pitifully and were trampled beneath the crushing stamp of those massive feet.

They splattered like a water balloon chucked down from a roof onto the hot pavement - making a horrible squelching slurp of sound as their bodies became pools of congealed blood and bone turned to dust.

Claire breathed, "Oh god..."

And Leon kicked open the door that was locked before them. Without looking he tossed her into the aviary with Cindy shortly behind them. Kevin was so far back. So far back there. He was losing ground to the elephant when he shouted, "GO! GOOOOO NOW! LEAVE ME!"

Cindy screamed, "KEVIN! NO!"

And Leon slammed the door on the aviary, shoving the women forward. "You heard him! GO!"

They stumbled, Cindy weeping madly, even as they ran for it. The aviary was filled with tweeting birds. Were birds unaffected by the virus? Were they immune?

The second they hit the bridge to cross the small pond beneath them, the answer became clear: no.

They were dive bombed by maddened birds. They caught in your hair and pecked at your face. Claire threw up her arms to block her skin while Cindy smacked them out of the sky with the fanny-pack like a weapon. The small birds were harmless, but annoying, but the eagle that came at them was deadly.

It called hungrily and went for Leon's face. Its beak caught the tip of his left ear and took a slice from it. Claire screamed and smacked it, open handed, like you'd swat a fly. It squawked and circled back around to come at them again.

It was missing an eye. The socket was empty and bleeding. The beautiful symbol of their great country was rotting. They could see inside its chest cavity where the delicate flesh and pretty white feathers had sloughed away from the bone.

It came for them again, inciting a battle cry to rally the other birds. It was clearly the leader. Leon breathed, hands shaking, and stopped running. Claire and Cindy hit the far side and called for him. But he couldn't do it. He couldn't leave it.

It was the great bald eagle. It deserved peace. He waited for it to come for him, calling for blood, and he blew its face apart with a single shot between the eyes. It twirled almost prettily for a moment before it plummeted into the water beneath.

The rage trembled around him as he ran out of the aviary with the woman. The virus had eroded even that. Even that gentle symbol of freedom was ruined. There was nothing worth saving in this city.

The aviary opened to the Safari walk of the zoo. It promised the viewer a series of incredible things -

 _ **Big Cat Country: The King Of Beasts - The lion.**_

 _ **The leopard.**_

 _ **The black panther.**_

The list went on for all the incredible, rare, and lethal beasts that waited beyond the walkway _ **.**_

It signaled the second path toward the waterway exhibit _ **-**_

 _ **Come see the killer whales! Come see the rare white alligators! Meet a seal! Swim with a dolphin!**_

Jesus.

What a joy it must have been here once.

Cindy breathed, "This is what happens when you cage something that was meant to be instinctively free."

She wasn't entirely wrong. Zoos were often depressing enough for those who believed nothing should be put on display that was meant to roam wild. Wherever they were, most of the things in the exhibits they passed were missing. They were free now, Leon thought, and hopefully not close by.

Big Cat Country crossed above exhibits with electric fences and overhangs. It was really a bridge above the deadliest cats in the world. As they moved, Leon glanced down into the dark, even though there was no hope of seeing anything beneath them but shadows.

Cindy was still crying softly as Claire tried to comfort her, "He knows what he's doing, Cindy. He probably cut left and went through the Ape House to get back toward the main gate. Don't give up."

Leon reached the end of the rise to the doors leading into the tram station and cursed, softly. "It's electronically sealed."

Claire froze, watching him turn toward them, "What?"

"It's sealed with a coded electronic lock. The door is steel. We have to restore power to this damn door to get into this building."

Cindy looked horrified. "How do we do that?!"

There was a ruffle of sound besides them. Leon and Claire were both aiming without realizing it. They glanced at each other in admiration before a tiny voice whispered, "...there's a generator in the maintenance shed on the east side of the zoo. It powers the whole grid in case of emergencies."

A bush was talking to them.

A bush.

In a night where elephants were trying to kill them, hellhounds were chasing them into a tunnel with killer spiders and flesh-eating zombies, it shouldn't have been funny. But it kinda was.

Leon called, "Come out, slowly. Please."

A small blonde woman emerged out of the bush, looking pale and frightened. She wore a khaki zoo vest and a walkie-talkie on her hip. She was thin and pretty with a curling tail of blonde hair along her shoulder in a svelte little coil.

She was also the woman in the photograph Leon held.

He made a sound and pulled it out, showing it to her. "Are you Alex?"

Alex blinked blue eyes, putting her hand out for the photo. She glanced at it -her smiling face and the dead man in the office. Her eyes teared up, "...Ewan."

Leon patted her arm sympathetically, "I'm sorry. He's..." He trailed off.

Alex nodded, putting the photo in her pocket of her vest. "Thank you. I understood why he locked the gate. I-we-the last of us...I didn't blame him. But others?" She shook her head.

Leon encouraged, "Are there others with you?"

She shook her head again, sadly, "I lost Amanda in the Ape House trying to get first-aid for Stu at Garden Cafe down front. She...the silverback gorilla...it was-it just-and we couldn't..." She dissolved into silence, shaking.

Cindy moved in to hug her without a word. The woman clung, shivering.

She finally whispered, "...I just ran while it smashed her into the bars and the glass. I just ran. I left her there. I left her..."

She wept openly now and Claire turned away to look back the way they'd come. Leon murmured supportively, "Don't blame yourself. There was nothing you could have done. If you hadn't run, you'd both be dead now. There's no shame in surviving."

A good speech, Claire mused, from a man who didn't really believe it.

Alex sniffled and wiped a hand under her running nose as she let go of Cindy. "Thank you...we can..." she coughed to clear her throat, "We can use the generator to bring power back to the zoo. It should let us get through the doors here into the tram station. I've heard it running until about an hour ago when the power went off. I got here and was too cowardly to turn around and go back by myself to try to start the generator."

Leon nodded, glancing at Claire. He considered things for a moment and finally said, "You three should wait here. I'll go start the generator."

Cindy shook her head, adamantly, "I am NOT waiting here! That elephant is still out there. Kevin is out there. And god knows what else. Splitting up is a really bad idea."

Alex added, "I'll go with you. I should. I have the passcodes for the locks. I have the keys for the exhibits. The last time I was down that way, the power was still on. The swamp exhibit is dangerous without electrified fences. We'll need to go through the whale habitat and cross underground to avoid it."

Leon sighed, shaking his head, "It's a bad idea to go that way together. I don't think I can protect all of us at once."

Claire arched both brows, "...I'm pretty sure we can work together on that, Kennedy. Don't worry."

He sighed, glancing at Alex, "Any chance you can use a gun?"

She shook her head sadly, "Never even held one."

With a sound of surrender, he gestured with his head, "Ok. When in Rome right? Let's get moving. Maybe Kevin is hiding somewhere close by."

Alex whispered, "...there's...the security office is down by the maintenance shed too. If-if we-if we can just get down there and get the elephant gun..."

Leon froze, looking at her, "...you have something that can stop that thing?"

Alex nodded, eagerly, "Of course. It's there with the sniper file they have just in case one of the exhibits gets infiltrated by a guest and they have to employ force."

Claire mused, thoughtfully, "What the hell is an "elephant gun" anyway?"

Leon shook his head as they walked, looking eager. "A big ass gun. The Holland and Holland I saw once set the guy firing it on his ass. It shoots a **.700 Nitro Express** cartridge. That beast fires a 1,000-grain bullet at a velocity of like two thousand feet per second."

Claire blinked, "You think you can handle that kind of thing?"

He gave her a bland look until she chuckled a bit and shrugged. "Sorry. Just asking."

Alex stayed very close to him as they walked. Leon noticed she was worrying a string of beads between her fingers like a comfort blanket. They fell silent as they turned down the small stairway to the underground tunnel through the whale exhibit.

Admittedly, it was once awesome.

If the power was on, the tunnel - entirely surrounded by water- was self-propelled, escorting the viewer through like an escalator as you took in the beautiful sight of natural aquatic life at play. Now the tunnel was dark and the water surrounding them murky and empty. Occasionally, you could glimpse the bloated corpse of a dead fish or an expired dolphin that floated by. The filmy whites of their eyes were the only thing seen in the foggy waves beyond the glass tunnel.

Claire looked so stricken that Leon finally asked, "What?"

"I remember coming through this for the first time a few years ago. I almost cried because it was so wonderful. I made faces at a hippo. I listened to the music of the humpback whale as it went by. It was..." She trailed off, her voice breaking.

Cindy put her arm around her, looking pale. "It was so beautiful."

Alex nodded, sniffling.

Leon said nothing, moving through the dark with them. It was worse somehow that this city had once been an architectural marvel. Worse to corrupt something that was so beautiful and pure. Nature turned black with man-made disease was too terrible for words.

They were halfway across when the first _whomp_ of sound found them. Claire paused, narrowing her eyes into the dark above them. "You hear that?"

It was distant, nearly indiscernible - until it came again to the left. Leon turned his gaze and the light in his hand. It flickered and danced against the glass and the dark water beyond...and settled on the glistening fin of the killer whale.

It was just there, watching them.

The rot had turned it into something out of a Steven King novel. Its upper jaw was almost entirely bone and swirling blood that looked black in the dark waters. The parasite it held had turned it macabre.

Its fan was sheered back into bloody chunks and split down the middle giving it two to the naked eye. Its eyes were red like the devil, pooled in the pinkened muscle surrounding the bare sockets - bleeding like something out of a nightmare. Its rib cage was entirely displayed on one side, the bare white bone somehow obscene amongst the eroding flesh and muscle. It nudged the glass with it's disintegrating snout, almost gently.

Claire whispered, "...Shamu from hell..."

Apparently, Shamu hated that insult the most. It reared back and spun, smashing its massive bulk into the glass with a force so great it shook the tunnel. They stumbled, Cindy grabbed Alex to stay upright. Alex shouted, "Oh god! It will crack the glass if it keeps doing that!"

Jesus Christ - she was right.

As if she'd invited the universe to shit on them, evil Shamu smashed the glass against with its weight and it was joined now by two great whites that made Jaws look like a guppie.

Leon shouted, "GO! Get to the door!"

If they cracked the glass, being eaten alive was the least of their worries. They'd die quickly that way. If that water touched them, they'd die infected and drowning. Infected in the dark while mutated sharks devoured them. It was almost worse than dying crushed by an enormous elephant.

They were running. They were running like they'd win the marathon and take home the gold. The tunnel was so long - made that way to offer such beautiful views of the aquatic habitat constructed with love. Infected fish blubbered by, smacking into the tank sides as if to aid to its demise.

There was no beauty here.

They might have gotten out without anything but a scare, but Shamu had company now. With a great _SLAP_ of sound, a colossal squid attached itself to the tunnel. It was oozing blood and ink into the water, the putrid rotting suction cups on its many legs gripping the glass with a gleeful hunger. It was missing both eyes, the empty sockets filled instead with bloody nerve endings, trailing like snot in the fetid water.

They passed under it, running for their lives.

The door was still a hundred yards away when the _CRACK_ split the air. Alex screamed, "4-1-2-1!"

And Leon felt the first droplet of water on his face. They were out of time.

He hit the panel on the door and crammed his fingers at the lock on it, turning the dials in a desperate rush.

The tank made another audible crack and the water rushed through, racing around their feet in a pooling circle. The air seemed to get sucked out of the tunnel with the water that raced in. It was suddenly hard to breathe in the once beautiful glass circle.

He clicked the last number on the lock and the door slid upward on rusty hinges. It was so slow, impossibly slow, Cindy crab walked through with Alex beside her when it was waist level...and the tunnel finished cracking.

It split with a sound like nothing Leon had ever heard. It screamed, like a banshee, the glass giving way as it was ripped apart under the assault of aquatic life meant to live in the wilds of the wide open ocean. The water gushed in so fast there was no time to do anything but duck under and pray.

Later, he'd think maybe he was cursed.

Claire was halfway under the door when the tentacle wrapped around his throat. It looped so fast that it was almost comic. The force of it stole his breath and jerked him toward the cracking glass directly above him.


	11. Aftermoon Delight

**Raccoon City**

* * *

 **Raccoon City, Pennsylvania**

 **September 26, 2018 –**

 **Aftermoon Delight**

* * *

He somehow held onto his gun even as Claire shouted, "LEON!"

The water was so loud that it made her sound far away.

He tried to fight against the squid's grip but it was monstrous. The suckers attached to his throat and attempted to rip his flesh off with the force. Leon felt his face turn purple and the small echo of two shots.

He was falling into Claire's arms in a handful of seconds and she jerked him under the door as the water shoved them like angry hands into the room beyond.

They were all screaming, smashing the door down as the water surged against the metal and threw Leon back with the force of it.

He got caught in the leaking water and was rushed across the room to smash into the far wall.

Alex was hitting the emergency drainage system switch on the wall beside the door. It opened up a drain in the center of the floor in four places as she shouted, "It will divert the water to the bilge overflow to the moat outside the zoo! It won't last forever but what choice do we have!?"

None.

Not a single thing.

Claire jerked Leon to his feet and they burst out of the pretty aquarium into the open air of the east concourse. There was a horrible moment of fear as they waited to see if the water would find them here but the drainage system was doing its job for the moment - there was nothing but breeze and crickets and soft thunder in the distance.

Around them, all the evidence of a children's zoo existed. It was a habitat filled with adorable goats - that were no longer adorable. They were gutted and rotting, dead and devoured, torn apart and dripping. Where once children had petted and fed bottles, now only death remained. The rocks they'd pranced and jump from were splashed with blood, the hay was still thick with it in places like sludge.

In a small pile near the exhibit door, two small bodies lay on their faces. Their matching yellow windbreakers were torn and flapping in the wind, turned scarlet with blood. The first one was missing an arm and the side of its throat. The second was half lost under the carcasses of two goats as if something had eaten into the child as an afterthought.

Claire whispered, "I don't know if I'll ever sleep again."

Would any of them?

Alex breathed, "The-the shed-it's that way."

The small little shed was easily accessed. It was simple enough to snack the cheap lock with the butt of his gun. Leon cleared the area and let Alex go in to start the generators.

From inside, Alex remarked, "I don't know what happens when the power comes back on. It could alert anything to the fact that we're here. We're gonna be on borrowed time with the lights on and the music and the activity. The whole city might start heading this way."

Jesus. He hadn't thought about that. In response, he suggested, "Anyway to just push power to the grid by the tram?"

Alex glanced at the controls in the tiny shed. It was carefully laid out in the pamphlet attached to the computer.

 _ **In case of emergency:**_

 _ **Activate the following protocol**_

 _ **Note - Power restored to substations last.**_

 _ **First - provide power to emergency functions to continue animal restrictions.**_

 _ **Second - provide power to the security office for further evacuation and containment response.**_

Alex turned the power to the restriction grid as instructed. There was a _POP_ and _BUZZ_ of power coming on somewhere close by. She diverted power to the security office beside the shed and it crackled musically as it lit up like a beacon.

Musingly, she said, "I think I just activated emergency things at the moment. Should just light up locks and doors and escape routes as well as securing the exhibits."

Leon nodded and gestured with his head to the office. They moved toward it and he opened the door, glancing inside. Empty - in a bad way. The elephant gun and the sniper rifle? Gone.

He muttered, "Damn." And stepped back out to join them in the dark.

The very least of things he'd found was three Kevlar vests hanging on the wall. Each girl put one on without complaining. He had a pocketful of .700 ammo for the damn gun if they ever found it. However, he hadn't found a single leftover round for the sniper rifle that was also missing.

He started to remark on it and Alex said, "We'll have to cut through the swamp exhibit to get back now. I'm so sorry. It was one of the first places we sealed off when the zoo started going down on power. Without the electrified fences, anything in there is free to roam."

Claire blinked twice and remarked, "What's in there?"

Alex answered, "It's modeled after the Lousiana swamp. To teach visitors about conservation in the Louisiana Swamp, we use animal exhibits—from black bears to blue crabs, from water snakes to red foxes—educational presentations, and graphics in some...but live animals where we can. It also serves as an outdoor classroom for school children. It was made to educate. With alligator feedings, activities and up-close encounters, both children and adults can enjoy a total immersion experience into an unusual and beautiful environment."

She spoke like she was reciting a pamphlet on it. She probably was. But it meant that whatever was loose in there was really, really, really loose.

Cindy encouraged, "Maybe they were behind the fences when you fired them up?"

Leon laughed, sarcastically, "You known our luck to be good so far?" His voice was hoarse from the squid that had choked him.

Claire brushed a thumb over his neck and the mark there stayed. Not dirt; bruising. He glanced at her in surprise and she whispered, "Sorry...just...sorry. I had to get a good shot."

He shook his head, "You saved my life. Apology not accepted."

He turned toward the farthest archway. A small metal gate beckoned them into the: **DELIGHTS OF THE BAYOU! A HANDS-ON EXPERIENCE WHERE YOU ARE THE STAR!**

He didn't want to be the star. He wanted the S.T.A.R.S. to show up and take over the whole show. He didn't want to be here at all. He wanted to go home, Netflix and chill, and watch reruns of The Office. He was over being a hero. He clearly sucked at it anyway.

He really just wanted to go home and change his mind about his life. Maybe Jessica would take him back if he begged. Maybe this was the last time he ever listened to his instincts for adventure.

Forget adventure - he was going to become a stay at home Dad.

Leon pushed open the gate into the delights of the bayou, feeling like he was potentially opening a pathway to hell.

The first thing they noticed was the smell; stagnant and sharp, it cloyingly filled the nostrils and made Cindy gag a little. There was nothing quite like water turned swampy. The good news? They didn't immediately end up fist fighting crocodiles or something.

The bad? The water had overtaken the sidewalk and they splashed as they walked. After two steps, Leon grabbed Claire and threw her against the wall. "WAIT!"

His shout made them all jump, but he was so pale, they didn't argue - they just waited.

He grabbed the edge of the concrete platform beside him and boosted up, reaching his hands down to the women one at a time to hoist them up with him. Whey they were gathered in a small huddle on the tiny platform, he said quietly, "The fences are one. The water has infiltrated. We can't guarantee we won't all electrocute if we get in it."

Geez. Claire shook her head, sharply, "Lord. What now?"

Alex remarked, quietly, "The fence only puts out enough amps to shock them. It shouldn't kill."

Leon returned, "The current kills you. A 220-volt shock will hurt just as much as a 10,000-volt shock, as long as the current or amps are the same. Amps are what kills."

Claire was quiet for a moment before she added, "Electric fence energizers put out high voltage of around 8,000 volts, but very low amperage around 120 milliamps."

She blinked when everyone looked at her and filled the silence with an explanation, "My brother owns forty acres in Montana, inherited from our parents when they passed. We had horses and sheep up there. We knew about electric fence and safety. We'll be fine."

To prove it, Claire stepped down into the shallow water. Everyone flinched, waiting for her to start doing some kind of electrocution dance. They waited for her body to jerk and jump and twitch.

Instead, she just moved forward in the stagnant swamp.

Reluctantly, the rest of them began to follow her.

The swamp was full of bugs. They circled nastily around in little whirlwinds of gross buzzing. They annoyingly lodged in the hair and near the eyes as they walked. Some kind of bird called into the air - a musical lilting sound. A whippoorwill? Who knew?

Was that a real bird?

Claire smirked to herself as they trudged through dirty water. She started to crack a joke and noticed that Leon was keeping pace with her, but that he looked like he might be trying to chew his face. She waited a moment, touched his elbow, and was surprised when he jerked her hand away.

Quietly, she queried, "What?"

He shook his head, moving ahead of her. Claire joined his side again, grabbing his arm. When he tried to pull away, she kept hold, "What, Leon? What?"

He finally stopped, looked down at her hand and then back at her face, and spat, "What if you were wrong? You don't think, Claire...you just...do what you want. You'd be dead now. And you call _me_ an idiot?"

A moment passed. Cindy stopped, wincing with sympathy for Claire. Alex looked concerned about the moment herself, but she was glancing into the darkness past the fences. "Guys? This is soooo not the time."

She was right. Naturally. But Leon jerked his arm away again and start moving. Claire lagged a bit, shaking her head. "...I wasn't wrong." She said it quietly, softly, almost apologetically.

Leon shook his head and took the lead, leaving her behind him.

This time, she didn't try to catch up. Cindy and Alex ranged around her, with girl sympathy. Claire mused, softly, "Was I wrong?"

Cindy shrugged but said nothing. Alex cajoled, "...a little. You were a little wrong. If he was right, you'd be dead now. He was trying to protect us all I think. You just...leaped in the water."

Cindy, again, said nothing.

Well, Claire thought, that was it. She was officially: "leaps without thinking" girl. Even her other gal pals here agreed. She was officially lumped in with stupid girls. A little offended, Claire remarked, "I was sure we'd be fine. Why is that so hard to believe?"

Cindy shook her head, "Not hard to believe. But you couldn't know for sure, Claire. You were guessing."

"Ok. So what? I was reasonably sure I was right. What's the chances any of us lives through this thing anyway, Cindy? Honestly? So what if I'm the first one down? Better electrocuted than eaten alive."

Jesus. The truth of that resonated so badly that Alex actually sniffled. Feeling bad about that, Claire looped an arm over her shoulders. "I'm sorry. I'm being an asshole because I'm actually sorry I scared everyone. I didn't mean that."

She did. But no reason to be a bitch about it.

She let go of Alex, "I'll apologize to Leon."

She was kinda getting good at that. Lord, was this all they did? Survive, run, fight, apologize. What else was there? She was starting to lose hope here.

Claire touched his back again and said, "Hey...look...I'm sorry I scared you."

He opened his mouth to respond...and shoved her instead. It was so unexpected that she didn't do anything but land on her ass in the water and skid. He shoved her so hard it literally took her breath away.

She hit the water, sent up a plume of it around her as if she'd just cannonballed into a swimming pool, and couldn't do anything but gasp for air.

He also saved her life.

The alligator got him instead.

Horrified, she watched it take him to the ground in a snarling snap of jaws and claws. It had leaped over the fence beside them from the rock pile where it was hanging out in the dark. It stunk of old mold and rot. Alex and Cindy helped her up in the ensuing madness.

Claire shouted, "RUN TO THE DOOR! GO!"

And they did that without being told twice.

The alligator and Leon were gone. It had taken him down to skid over the walkway, under the edge of the rock wall behind him, and into the swampy water. He was gone, submerged, lost. The fence here was torn and sparking. Useless. Something had torn it down in an attempt to escape.

Claire waded into the water, finding it waste deep and freezing. It was brave and stupid to do it, but she'd be damned if she let him die to save her. The panic, the terror, the horror of that...it stole her breath and left her dizzy.

"LEON!" She shouted it, desperate. Stupid, she knew, to shout. But she couldn't see anything in the dark.

She could hear though. She heard the boom of his gun. She watched birds take flight in a cawing mess of anger. She heard it go off again. Too far away. Too far. She caught her boot on something in the water and jerked in anger, thwarted from getting to the direction of the gunshot.

The thing in the water came loose and floated up, up, up and she was face to face with the half-eaten countenance of someone long dead.

It had one eye. It had one ear. It had claw marks over it's ripped out throat. It was male once, maybe, and had long hair. But the other half of its head was ravaged and torn away.

Alligators?

The chattering sound beside her said maybe not. She was snout to face now with a red fox.

Well, it had once been that anyway. It made some kind of fox chatter noise at her and bared its dripping teeth. Rotten. It was dripping with infection. It was dying where it stood. It was already dead and risen to make her join it. Undead fox - looking to feed.

She was frozen as it snarled and dove for her face.

An inch from her nose it was blasted out of the air. A fucking risky shot. Dangerous. It whizzed so close to her cheek that she felt it split skin and burn. The fox yelped and was thrown back over the rock, literally shot in midair. The hot wash of her blood spilled down her cheek.

She lifted her hand to it, staring at the blood on her fingers in horror.

Hers?

She touched her ear and realized the bullet had graced that too. He'd shot the damn thing out of the sky over her shoulder, and grazed her face. She turned her head and found him coming through the waist-high water. He seemed so far away. He hadn't hit her. He'd killed the fox. It was a HELLUVA shot.

He wasn't coming alone.

Behind him, three alligators had joined the party. They were giving chase, and the corpse of their comrade floated belly-up in the water where he'd left it. He was bleeding from his forehead somewhere. He was missing his bulletproof vest. His shirt was ripped on the left shoulder, but the skin looked flawless beneath.

He shouted, "RUN, CLAIRE!"

But she was frozen.

Her feet would NOT move. She was frozen there. The second she knew it was shock, she felt her lips with her tongue. Cold. Damnit.

She was going to get them both killed. She staggered but didn't go down. He reached her and she almost did then. She almost collapsed against him. But instead, he jerked her up with his hands fisted in her jacket. "Help me, Claire! You hear me!? HELP ME!"

Right in her face. He shouted so loud it echoed.

She took the gun from his hands he was thrusting at her. She took it as he scooped her against him. No thought here. None of that. She latched around him like a child and let him carry her.

He slogged through the water with her legs around his waist and she aimed over his shoulder, watching the alligators barrel toward them. He shouted, "SHOOT, CLAIRE!"

Right. Shoot.

She did. She fired right into the snarling jaws of the one closest to them. It ate a bullet, whipped its bleeding face around, and knocked its brothers away in the process. She felt like a champ. Her hands weren't so cold anymore.

She put two more in the next set of jaws that dove for them and he hit the sidewalk again.

He could have set her down - but he didn't. He just ran for it. She clutched around him, putting her face against his neck.

The alligators, literally, snapped at his heels and she shot one in the eye that tried to take his calf. It threw blood as it recoiled, tossing its head in agony.

She was a good shot. She'd said that she was, Leon mused, but here was the proof. Even under stress, even half mired in shock - Claire didn't miss.

But there weren't enough bullets in that gun to keep them alive at this point. They were dead anyway. He simply wasn't fast enough to outrun a mutated alligator.

What was the expression? A "croc" of shit? Apparently, it was more like an alligator of one.

But they'd go down fighting, he thought, as he kicked the snarling jaws of the next one that tried to get him from the side. They'd go down fighting.

At this point, it was all they had left anyway.


	12. The King of Beasts

**Raccoon City**

* * *

 **Raccoon City, Pennsylvania**

 **September 26, 2018 –**

 **The King of Beasts**

* * *

Luck was a fateful mistress - she decided it wasn't their time to die after all.

They were almost there. They turned the corner and were at the gate.

Cindy shouted, "HURRY!"

They spilled through the gate, Cindy snapped it shut, and the snarling alligators hit it a second later. They snapped and slammed into the metal, denied their dinner and roaring in rage. None of them stopped.

They just ran for the far side of the Big Cat Country. Alex keyed them into the tram station and they spilled inside.

It was cool and dark inside. It was cool and dark and quiet. Leon immediately turned and set Claire down on the bench beside the tracks, kneeling to push her hair back from her face and look her over. With a bark of hoarse command, he instructed, "Clear the area! Clear the area! Are we clear?"

The other women were glancing around in the shadows desperately. The tram was missing, the tracks naked, the night air that shone in from the vine-covered roof above them was mingling with the whir of powerful air conditioning from the vents on the wall. The tram station was part outdoor extravagant display, part indoor delight.

There was a closed office to one side and the chatter of crickets mixed with the song of the cicadas hiding out in the small glade of moss and limbs overhead.

Cindy whispered, "There's no one here but us."

Alex breathed, "The tram is gone."

She sounded so heartbroken. For Leon, it was definitely an intense feeling of failure. What had he really thought? That their escape was waiting with the steam coming out like the Hogwarts Express?

Jesus. Shoveling aside the disappointment, Leon gave Claire's cold face a little shake. "Stay here, sweetheart, stay with me here."

Claire turned her gaze from the wall to his face. She was dizzy. She was dizzy and a little lightheaded. It pissed her off enough that she started to feel her toes again. The "sweetheart" platitude out of his mouth brought her back to herself as if he'd smacked her.

She pushed at his shoulders, shaking but alert. "I'm ok. Thanks. I'm good. I'm sorry about back there. I just...I saw that guy in the water...and I just-stopped. I just fucking stopped."

Angry with herself, she rose to pace a little. Leon stayed crouched by the bench, watching her. "That's normal, Claire. You're not a superhero here. It's ok to react like that sometimes."

She shook her head, denying. "Don't patronize me, Leon."

He arched his brows, "I wasn't aware that that's what I was doing. I thought I was just commiserating with you."

She gave him a long-suffering look, "You just had a hero moment there, pal. Me? I failed. Big time."

He rubbed the back of his neck, rising to his feet. His ripped uniform scared her. His bloody face scared her. He'd nearly died saving her. It scared her to death.

Partly because losing him was starting to scare her in places she didn't like. She was getting attached to him. And it wouldn't end well in the middle of a nightmare.

He looked so hurt, so tired - she needed to stop caring about him so much. So she spat, "Right. Sure. Stupid girl shit like that? It gets you killed. I'm fine. Fuck breakdowns, Leon, it's asinine. We know the world is fucked here. If I start staring like a zombie, I might as well become one."

Cindy touched her arm, rubbing gently, "Give yourself credit, Claire. You've survived when everyone else hasn't. You're not a normal girl...but you are human. Humans? We have a tendency to freeze sometimes."

Alex whispered, "...like when you see your friends slaughtered."

Leon closed his eyes, feeling it. And he spoke with so much pain that it shut Claire up and made her feel like shit, "Or when you stand there and cower when you should try to save them."

She'd forgotten, for just a moment, for just a second...that he'd panicked too. She'd forgotten that he'd frozen there while Elza had died. She'd forgotten.

He wasn't a hero because he saved her back there. He was a hero because he probably pissed his pants and he still didn't run...but he hadn't saved Elza Walker. And that weighed on him like an anchor around his neck. She could see it. She could feel it for him.

Claire wished she could take that guilt from him. He'd really come through for them. He'd been incredible. His guilt was misplaced. But telling him that wouldn't fix it. It wouldn't take it away for him.

Apparently, they all had their guilt to bathe in here. They could do that all night, or they could get moving.

Leon rose, shaking his head. He moved toward the office door to the tram station. It was unlocked and empty save for a desk and some papers with a computer left on and open. He clicked a few keys to find a video feed. It was the hospital in town. It was barricaded by a pretty effective looking military set up. The local police were gathered there as well, offering help to people that came staggering up. Others were put down in a rapid chatter of gunfire when they were confirmed walkers.

Leon shook his head, glancing over to find the women watching him. He said, "The hospital is still up and running."

Cindy mused, "The Apple Inn?"

He shrugged, slightly. "I can't tell. But this tram will take us out that way, right?"

Alex nodded, "If we can find the tram itself."

Right. Don't forget, he thought, it's missing. Things in this place? Always missing. The tram was missing, without it, they were trapped here or forced back out into the zoo to find the other gate.

Leon started to suggest they do just that when Cindy whispered, "...oh...shit."

And hit a button on the wall beside the desk in the office.

There was a rumble of sound, a toot of a train horn, and the tram could be heard being recalled from where it was close by. She grinned, hugely, "...boom."

They were just emerging back onto the platform when the next sound wasn't nearly as exciting. Mixed with train horn, the purring wasn't very loud. It should have been louder, seeing as it was just on the other side of the train platform.

The lion paced there, padding on pretty golden paws, watching them from a shaggy mane matted and thick with dried blood. It pawed the concrete, considering them. It listened intelligently to the sound of the coming tram.

The weird thing?

It didn't look dead. It didn't look infected. It just looked hungry.

Alex whispered, "He's still alive." And she said with awe.

Leon lifted both hands, palms out, "Hey fella...we're...just gonna get on the train ok? This zoo? ALL YOU. All yours. Let us go and I'll come back later with a big fat steak for you."

The tram tooted again as it came chugging down the tracks. It blew a whistle, high and loud, and shimmied to a stop in front of them, the doors opening. So there they were, staring through the open doors at the lion on the other side.

If they stepped in, would he let them go?

Were cats neutral? Like wolves?

He really felt he should have paid better attention in zoology.

Of course, the choice got a little easier when Kevin appeared in the doorway of the tram - holding the elephant gun and aiming it at the lion. "Easy, big guy, just stay right there."

The Lion growled, low and threatening, but he didn't attack. He was too wise for that. He knew that gun. He knew what it meant. He just paced, watching them.

Kevin said, "You ever get the feeling someone is plotting your death?"

They leaped on the tram and Alex ran to the controls. She hit the buttons. The doors swished shut.

And the lion smashed into them, roaring in rage. Claire grabbed Cindy, who grabbed Kevin, who stumbled as the tram backed up and headed the other direction.

Kevin ran to the control room to guide the tram on the tracks. They were free of the zoo, free of the station.

But they didn't leave the station alone.

The top of the tram peeled back in a squeal of metal as if someone had opened it with a key to a sardine can. It just rolled, metal over metal in a high pitched pull of sound. It was torn open by claws.

Two lionesses leaped into the main cabin of the tram. They were tawny and somehow lovely. That they were alive was the most insane part. Why? Was the virus oblivious to cat DNA?

Claire whispered, "He's protected them." She said it with awe. As if it surprised her.

But she was right. The king of beasts had somehow protected his pack from the virus. He'd somehow led them to feed only on things that weren't infected.

The gutted gazelles they'd seen. The devoured humans. They hadn't all been killed by zombies and rot. They'd been killed by the lord of the plains and his pack of huntresses.

It was admirable. It was almost a travesty to face them down in the cabin, knowing someone was about to die. This was, literally, survival of the fittest.

The first lioness purred, almost like a cat, pacing and watching them.

Claire backed up, bumping into Alex, and the girl from the zoo whispered, "They usually won't attack unless you offer violence...but they're hungry."

Leon shifted, subtly, in front of the women. "Look here, pretty girl. Right here."

Annoyed, Claire shifted to his left, holding her pistol. "Here too. Right here."

Leon gave her a look and she mused, "Can't hurt to split her focus. She can't get us all at once."

The second had a seat, plopping down on her haunches and licking her paw as if she had all the time in the world to wait.

Alex whispered, "I have an idea." She backed up into the tram door behind them and disappeared.

The first lioness purred prettily and lifted her hackles, hunkering down like a cat stalking a mouse. She growled, signally her attack, and Claire breathed, "Please. We don't want to kill you."

She leaped. Leon's gun went off and she avoided the shot, bounding to the side as it hit the floor and sparked, throwing fire where it struck. The elephant was with Kevin at the controls in the front of the tram.

Claire shouted, "KEVIN! HURRY!"

And the lioness picked her target. She got a bullet in the chest for it as she took Claire in a tackle. Claire screamed, holding onto the gun even is it was sandwiched between them. Leon shouted and went for another shot, but the second lioness took him down for effort.

He got his arm up to her claws, she split the skin in a mad burst, and Claire fired again into the body atop her as the first one rose up to take her throat. Spittle dripped down her face, the lioness roared with hunger and got a mouthful of her leather coat, jerking her up and shaking her as if she were a toy given to a playful kitten. The cloth split in a wet slurp, leaving her fragile skin and bra exposed. Claire thought - t _his is how I die, eaten to death by a lion_...and Alex set off a smoke bomb with an enormous BANG of sound.

The lioness retreated, trained to do so, from the smoke. She set up a sound of fear and bounded to the row of seats to leap out the fractured roof. Her companion followed, lapping her tongue over Leon's ruined arm as she went.

Alex rushed through the smoke to grip Claire and drag her to her feet. They grabbed Leon as they ran into the next compartment and Cindy shouted, "They're gone! They leaped off the tram and ran for it."

Alex slammed the connecting door, sealing them in the second car with Kevin and the gun. He hadn't heard them. In his defense, the control room was louder as hell.

Claire jerked off her ruined jacket, frowning at the busted zipper. With some luck, she could fix it. She ripped a piece of her shirt away and turned to secure it to Leon's bleeding arm. Concerned, she still told him, "I...I don't think it's going to...ya know..."

"Get infected?"

She lifted her eyes to his face, "I don't think so. Do you?"

It was superficial, mostly bloody but shallow. But it had to hurt like hell. However, she felt pretty confident that it wouldn't make him turn. The lions seemed normal. They seemed free of infection.

Could they be 100% sure? Of course not. But it was a pretty good chance that it was just painful, not dangerous.

He separated from her, quickly, unwilling to want to stand there in her process in a little-torn tank top with her tits popping out the top and her big eyes staring at him. He'd done enough picturing her that way for a lifetime.

Picturing her that way had gotten Elza Walker killed. He was done picturing Claire's face.

Leon stood out the back of the car, on the little narrow overhang, watching the lion chase them down the tracks. It didn't take long to lose the king of beasts in the darkness as they took off. The speed of the tram outstripped the predator of the Savannah and left him calling for their blood.

The tram cornered spilling out of the zoo on a rickety ride of sound and movement. Leon leaned on the railing, watching the night roll by. The city was burning in places, bleeding in others, blackened in more. It was a dying thing, Raccoon. It was mostly dead. It was undead, rising again to haunt them all forever.

He scrubbed a hand over his filthy face and turned back into the tram car.

Kevin looked blackened on one arm but ok. He shook hands with Leon, eyeing his hair. "You bust your head?"

Curiously, Leon caught a look of himself in the mirror. He looked awful. His hair was a half bloody mohawk, sticking up in front like a bad dye job. He'd busted his head alright, hitting the bottom of the rock floor of the swamp when the alligator had taken him down.

He'd lost his vest to the thing but avoided being eaten.

So he considered that a win.

Shrugging, Leon moved to check the map on the tram as it rocketed toward their destination. It tooted twice, irritating him as it drew attention to their journey. But it was a short enough trip anyway.

It gave a rolling jerk and came to a stop on the riverwalk just outside of the Apple Inn.

The question of whether or not it was safe was quickly answered. The tram doors opened and a group of military uniforms began grabbing at them to shove them up the walkway toward the big brick building. The questions started flying.

They lost sight of each other in the rush of things.

Leon ended up one way with Kevin, Claire and the other girls went another.

After being examined by doctors and treated, triaged, and questioned, they were given rooms on the third floor. It was a whirlwind really. It happened in a flash.

The sheer oppression of the evening, coupled with blatant disappointment to find Chris anywhere at the inn, had Claire standing in the room she was sharing with Cindy and the happy face of Yoko Suzuki and staring out into the dark beyond the window. The other two were snoring away, showered and clean and exhausted.

Claire was clean. She was dressed in the clothes they'd given her. It felt more Jessica Jones than she'd like - she'd refused to give up her red leather jacket and instead, it was currently being cleaned in the linen room - but the ribbed undershirt tank and the ragged jeans looked good with the boots she was wearing anyway. She'd pinned her hair up in a sloppy ponytail and revealed the march of earrings up her ears that ended in the cuff one the left one and the triple cartilage of hoops on the right.

She looked like her. She was still the free spirit with the "weirdo" parents who'd grown up learning about "the goddess" and the "path of light" from her Wiccan mother. Her father had been a hippie himself, loving the earth and living organically on their farm. He'd failed to teach Chris that guns were instruments of murder though, and instead butted heads with his oldest child until her brother had fled the family circus for the military.

Sadly for Chris, authority had never sat well with him. He'd left the military under some questionable circumstances and found his way to Raccoon City. Claire, meanwhile, had thrived with a mother so well versed in female power. She'd taught Claire all about empowering herself from within and without. Her father had cultivated a deep sense of helping others that wouldn't allow Claire to hurt a fly, without provocation, and left her straddling the line between a girl who wanted to save the world and a girl who wanted to rule it.

Their death had nearly killed her. Chris, always close to his mother even when things were strained under his father, had come back to a mess. He'd done the best he could - raising a headstrong sister who was barely out of middle school. He'd legally adopted her even though he was a tender eighteen and she barely eleven. They'd formed some kind of broken unit at first, fighting to work together when they'd rather blame the other for the misery in their house.

He'd moved them off the land she'd grown up on to take her to Raccoon. She'd fought him at first, throwing fits, acting out, rebelling. He'd handled her tenderly, then roughly - making it clear she was done being an asshole when she pushed too far.

The truth was - she couldn't love anyone more than him if she wanted. He was her brother, her best friend, her strength. He'd raze this city to the dirt than let her feel an ounce of pain.

She couldn't leave him here. He had to be here. Because if he was gone...if he was lost...she didn't think she'd survive it. She didn't think she'd want to.

He was all she had left.

She had to find him.

It was as simple as that.


	13. Of Gods and Men

**A/N:** _Right off, I can tell you that I blended this story from others that I've failed at, farted off, and given up on over the years. That's right - years. This is a story years in the making; kick started after conversation with certain folks (ya'll know who you are) and brought to light in front of the new remake coming. So if this part feels familiar, it probably is. It's a reworked part from an entirely different tale. Thank you for reading this. It's a labor of love. I try to lend credence to the canon while still keeping the story fresh. I appreciate all the suggestions and eyes on it._

* * *

 **Raccoon City**

* * *

 **Raccoon City, Pennsylvania**

 **September 26, 2018 –**

 **Of Gods and Men**

* * *

The flicker of the monitor shone over his face in the darkness of the room. It wasn't a bad face. It was a face characterized by it's WASP breeding. It was a classic face, a handsome face but not to the point you'd remember it.

Everything about Albert Wesker was meant to be forgotten. He was someone you'd see in a crowd and dismiss. Handsome, yes, but not in a way meant to drooled over. Not in a way meant to be worshiped or obsessed about. He was simply a handsome man, somewhere in his forties, with a tall rangy build, blonde hair and blue eyes.

His job, his livelihood, existed on the idea that he was average in looks.

He couldn't sneak in somewhere and stand out, it defeated the purpose of espionage. Subterfuge was his game after all. How could one who stood out dismantle, secretly, an entire company from the ground up?

He'd played his part and played it well to aid in the beginning of the destruction of the Umbrella Company. They were shards of their former self after the Mansion had fallen and Wesker was systematically buying and bribing and murdering to acquire those pieces. It would give him the final legs of power he'd needed to fully ascend from man to god.

No. From man to **GOD**.

There were still a few stones in his way. Raccoon City for one. Beneath its teeming streets William Birkin still hid and with him was the nearly perfected G-Virus. All he needed was G. With G he'd be practically immortal. G was a mutation of the type-B Progenitor variant. It increased cellular reproduction to nearly unpredictable heights. With it, he'd be not only indestructible, he'd been unstoppable.

But, of course, Birkin was proving impossible to find. He'd sent Ada Wong in to find him of course, but that was proving useless. He'd heard some rumors of him hiding at the Spencer Estate and had used his power with the S.T.A.R.S to get a team dispatch there to investigate the "cannibal killings".

He knew what it was, of course. It was the T-Virus. He'd released the strain himself into the water of this god forsaken city as a way to cover his tracks. Soon the place would be infested with run of the mill carriers and he'd sit back and watch it crumble. The Spencer Estate was a lost cause, he was sure of it. Hell, he hadn't even orchestrated that mess. It was natural selection. He'd known there was a leak there and hadn't bothered to step in to stop it. He was, essentially, sending the S.T.A.R.S into a death trap but it didn't matter. They were expendable and the combat data would be worth the loss. Especially if they found Birkin.

The underground lab beneath the city was another place he could be hiding. God knew that place was a maze on a good day. Infested with carriers and other freaks, it was likely a jungle. But how to find him down there?

He'd already released the Tyrant to go play with whoever had the misfortune to come across the lab. And the Nemesis had been activated to deal with any lingering S.T.A.R.S trouble. But what if that wasn't enough?

He considered releasing Mr. X. X was cleverly given his name because he was a hybrid designed from human gene manipulation and the T-Virus which would ideally give them the "X" factor in the equation. He was improbably fast, impossibly strong, and almost invincible. His only weakness was he had a singular focus when given an order and, once given it, couldn't seem to be reprogrammed to another.

X was a formidable opponent to be sure when given an objective but without one, well, he was just a big strong doll that would run into a wall over and over. Thus they'd destroyed the first three Mr. X's when, upon completion of their objective, they had become self destructive and useless.

Reserving him for later, Wesker continued to scan the monitor in front of him. It showed him key hot spots through out the city. The park, the police station and various points within, the town square, the underground subway station, the zoo, the hospital and the forest. The cemetary was suffering from lack of exposure there, with the camera tarnished from vandals - so checking on it was impossible. These were all places where the virus was being spread. This way he'd see the outbreak at it's finest and maybe catch a glimpse of Birkin fleeing.

It seemed the show was about to begin. Soon enough, the chaos would flush out the rat, he was sure of that. He just needed to bide his time. He just needed to wait for fate to hand him the keys to his own righteous destiny.

He watched the undead begin to feast upon screaming citizens with an empty grin on his very ordinary, very evil face.

* * *

The Apple Inn was a refuge point. It was where they all gathered in an attempt to make some sense out of who was left, who was lost, and who was still fighting.

The army was holding their own, even if the city was burning around them. Chris Redfield wasn't encountering any help whatsoever in his search for his sister. The army had intercepted him trying to get into the city. They thought he was nuts when he explained he was the only idiot trying to get IN to a burning necropolis.

"I need to find my sister!" He'd shouted at the well meaning Lieutenant who tried to turn him around.

"Sir! All survivors are being evacuated to the Apple Inn."

So, he'd gone to the Inn. But Claire wasn't there. People were being rushed in by the drove. They were brought in until the Inn was teeming with survivors.

But Claire wasn't among them. Chris took up a spot against a wall in the hallway, settling down. At this point, he needed some sleep. If he didn't, he'd be dead on his feet trying to find her. There was a good chance she'd roll in amongst the survivors soon enough. She was his blood, his girl; she'd make it. He wasn't sure how he knew that, but he just did.

And he'd find her.

He fell asleep listening to the sounds of people moving about.

And awoke to the eager call of a woman in a red suit.

"Craig? Are you ok?"

Craig was standing in front of the window in the open room door where she called, looking out into the street. The hair on the back of Chris' neck stood up. He slid against the wall, rising. The woman urged him again, looking pale.

"Craig…"

Craig said nothing.

"Craig…?"

He started to turn from the window. He was listing a little, dragging his feet. Obviously he'd been drinking. She took a step toward him and the smell hit her.

It wasn't booze. It was rot. He smelled like rotting meat. The second smell? Fire. The building was on fire.

The second he noticed it, he heard the screams.

"No…oh god!" The woman stumbled backward, tripped on the carpet and kicked the door to the room shut as her undead companion groaned and lumbered forward. He hit the door with a moan and she could hear him scratching to get out, scratching to eat her face.

"Oh god…oh god oh god…"

A hand slipped around her arm and pulled her to her feet. Chris lifted her up.

"...it's done. He's gone. I'm so sorry."

The woman nodded, shook herself. She'd been ready for this. She could handle this. She could. She whispered, "I'm Alyssa. Alyssa Ashcroft."

"The reporter?"

She nodded, looking at the door, "That...that was my editor."

"Not anymore. I'm Chris Redfield."

"...the disgraced S.T.A.R.S. member?"

He nodded, holding her gaze, and she mused, "Shit. You weren't wrong after all huh? Vindication is an asshole I guess."

Alyssa was dressed in jeans and a red tank top. Beside her, Chris wore a white t-shirt and jeans. "We gotta go." He said it quietly. "We gotta get out of here."

He offered her his cellphone. She gazed at it blankly.

Alyssa met his eyes. "Mine stopped working. Did you get anyone?"

The phone in his hand had been useless. Not a single answer at the station. At the S.T.A.R.S office. At the newspaper or the Mayors office. They were cut off from the world. And they both knew it.

He shook his head anyway.

People began to gather. He was delighted to find Kevin Ryman among them. Kevin caught his look and remarked, "Redfield. Holy shit! How long have you been here?"

"Hours. Why?"

"I lost your sister in the rush about six hours ago."

She was THERE. Claire was HERE.

"I need to find her."

Kevin grabbed his arm, "It's a madhouse. We can't. We have to go."

He was right. They had to get out first. Claire was here. She was somewhere. She'd use her noodle and go somewhere safe. He asked, "Where was she going?"

"The station. To find you." Kevin returned, "She's something else man. She fights like a tiger. You raise her?"

That was his girl alright. Chris nodded, patting his shoulder. "We raised each other. I gotta get to the station." He eyed the people milling around them. The smell of smoke was getting stronger.

It was time to move.

"Guns?" He queried, scanning the group of people that began to gather in the hallway.

Kevin had two, of course. But the rest of them were weaponless. He passed one of them to Chris.

The door to the undead Craig's room vibrated, hard. Her face was a mask of grief.

"Craig," Alyssa whispered, "He didn't…he's…"

Chris nodded and stepped passed her. Twisting the knob, he stepped back.

Craig the zombie stumbled through, moaning, hungry. Part of his face had started to rot, exposing gums and teeth to the dim light of the hallway. He lifted a hand and it slid down Chris's chest to grip a handful of his shirt.

"Chris!" Alyssa cried, "He'll kill you!"

Chris sighed a little. The gun in his left hand was useless and unnecessary. Zombies like Craig were weak, a dime a dozen and slow as molasses.

The thing that had been Craig hadn't had the virus in its blood long enough to benefit from the strength that came with it. He was still partly unchanged, still human strong but hungering for the flesh and blood to sustain himself.

Forgoing the waste of a bullet, Chris gripped the man's rotting chin. Teeth gnashed and those hands grasped and groped at Chris's shirt, trying to bring him closer to feast.

"Sorry bastard." He said it calmly, stoically and glancing back at her stricken face he did what he had to do. He put Craig out of his misery. He gripped that chin, wound his other hand around the back of his head and jerked. Biceps bunching he broke his neck. The sound was sharp, loud and sickening in the quiet hallway.

Craig's body tumbled to the ground, still. Alyssa let out a pitiful moan. "Jesus I hated him. This feels like shit."

"Disable the brain. " They looked at him, "Disable the brain stem. It's how you stop them. Forget the heart or the lungs. They're dead. They don't breathe. The brain. Put them down. They are slow and stupid. But they are strong."

Alyssa shook her head, rapidly and stepped away. "Not our first rodeo, handsome. We know. Let's get the frick outta here."

She rushed into the room Craig had exited. There was a clatter of sound from within.

Kevin stepped up beside him and laid a hand on his shoulder. "Shit soup, Red."

"Yeah." Chris replied, "Shit soup."

Alyssa emerged from the room in minutes, dressed now in a gray hooded sweatshirt. Her hair was pulled off her face in a swinging ponytail. She had a very big, very nasty shotgun over her shoulder.

Impressed, Kevin said, "You know how to use that thing?"

Alyssa swung it around and chambered a round. "I'm not just a pretty face."

Jim Chapman had joined them, along with David King, the plumber. Jim whistled, "Got that right sista."

Alyssa turned to Chris. "Where to?"

"RPD station." He turned and headed toward the staircase that would take them to the lobby. "If anyones alive they're there. Claire's right about that."

Alyssa laughed, "Claire from before?"

Kevin nodded, "Yep."

"The one with the hot cop?"

Chris arched his brows and Alyssa explained, "She was running with a hot cop at one point before we all got separated. She's probably still with him."

He turned to Kevin and Kevin said, "He's a good kid. A rookie. He cares about her. He'll protect her."

That was all that mattered, "Good. I'll take point. You two hold down the rear. Alyssa; with me."

Alyssa stepped up beside him as he eased the door to the stairwell open and went through, low. After he'd cleared the first level, he motioned for the rest to follow.

They made it two floors before there was any real trouble.

On the second floor from ground level the stairwell was blazing. Fire licked and lapped at the stairs and the wallpaper with hungry tongues. They diverged, turning down the hallway and headed for the opposite end.

"Elevator?" Jim asked as the group moved slowly, sticking as close together as they could.

But that was out of order. Of course it was.

Chris turned and scanned the emergency evacuation diagram hanging on the wall beside the elevator. It was there in case of fire but he figured in case of undead invasion probably qualified as an emergency.

"There's a set of steel emergency ladders outside the balcony of room 204. We'll take those to ground level and cut across the alley toward the station. In the mean time, we'll split up and gather supplies, check for survivors. Kevin, take Jim and David and check the rooms down the west wing. Alyssa and I will finish down this hallway. Meet in ten minutes at room 204."

There was nods all around and the group split up, heading down different hallways on their hunt for weapons and survivors.

Alyssa stepped up beside him as they came upon the first door.

"You're better looking than I remember."

He glanced at her in surprise, "We met?"

"Just once. The press conference where you blew your credibility. For the record? I always believed you."

"Thanks."

She sighed, "I hate Craig. But I don't know that I could have killed him. Thank you. For doing that."

"Sure. I couldn't leave him like that. It was the least I could do for him."

"I'm not sure I could have done it. I'm fucking glad you're here."

He nodded once and stepped back enough to kick the door wide open in front of them. Gun out, he entered room. It was clear, unoccupied although an open duffel bag under the bed told the story of someone having been here at one time.

The next room had two zombies shambling uselessly around the bathroom. He dispatched one with a shot to the head and broke the neck of the other. Alyssa searched their belongings and uncovered a first AID kit. She'd dumped out the contents of the duffel bag from the previous room and had the strap cross body strapped over her chest. She slid the first AID kit into the bag.

The next room revealed a woman lying on the floor. Most of her neck and chest was eaten away, showing the white of bone and exposed pink muscle. She wasn't coming back. She was well and truly dead.

The final room in their wing was the worst. Two small children were hiding under the bed. What had once been their father was spread over the bathroom in chunks and stains.

Alyssa gagged a little at the sight and wretched, throwing up most of her dinner in the bathroom sink. She slipped on an eyeball and it squished beneath her foot like a grape popping. Dizzy with horror, she laid a hand on the sink and tried to get it together.

Chris was peering under the bed at two sets of terrified blue eyes.

"Hi guys. Whatcha doin under there?"

One of the kids, probably about three, said quietly, "Monsters eat my mommy."

Something in his chest tightened, hard. He held out a hand and the little boy gripped it, palm to palm. He tugged him from beneath the bed. The other child, a little older, maybe six, was a girl in a dirty blue dress.

She stared at Chris with more distrust on her face. She knew not to talk to strangers.

"My dad's dead too." She said it with no emotion in her voice. Shock? Staring into her glassy eyes he was pretty sure it was.

"I know." He took their hands and pulled them from the room. Alyssa was already in the hallway, looking sweaty but stable.

"Okay?" He asked, meeting her eyes.

She nodded and the group of four moved down the hallway toward 204.

The little girl and boy held hands and stayed between Chris and Alyssa. Neither was crying. He figured they were too much in shock for that.

The rest of the group was waiting outside the room.

Alyssa carried the three year old and David hoisted up the little girl. She met his gray eyes with very solemn blue ones. "You have hair like a princess."

He smiled at her, gently. "Maybe you could braid it for me later."

She nodded and put her head on his shoulder.

Kevin eased open the door to 204. It was empty.

The window was wide enough for one person at a time to go through onto the fire escape. He went first and scanned the darkness of the alley way below them. The city was on fire around them. He could hear gunshots and screaming, sirens were wailing. Chaos had erupted in Raccoon City and they were headed straight into the heart of it.

With a jerk, the ladder descended to the ground with a rusty groan. It clunk and clanged as it fell hitting the ground far below with a metal shriek.

"I'll go first. Kevin you take the rear."

"That's what she said." Jim grinned at his own joke. Someone laughed a little. Maybe they weren't all too far gone after all.

Chris went down two rungs and then he put his boots on the outside of the ladder, placed his hands as well and slid the rest of the way down.

From the two floors up above, after he landed, he heard someone say, "Neato."

People dropped down beside him, one after the other. The children clung like monkeys to the backs of David and Alyssa as they climbed down.

Kevin landed last and the small group of people looked around the alley. A garbage bin sat off to one side and trash was thrown everywhere around it as if someone had come through and rooted around for something.

To the right the street waited. It looked empty. They all knew it wouldn't be.

Two steps out into the street, they found out they were right.

Chaos erupted. People were running and screaming like chickens with their heads cut off. Zombies had plenty of others pinned on the ground, savagely devouring their faces and anything else they could get to. A few cops were trying to maintain order but it was pointless.

Chris called above the din as they tried to move among the madness, "Stay together! If you see a weapon, grab it!"

This was how most of the group of our little tale ended up with various kinds of weapons. Jim had a large pipe. David, being brilliant, had created a spear from some piece of wood and a shard of glass.

They hurried, the sound of boots lost somewhere under the screaming of people and the wailing of sirens. A few unfortunate zombies met their demise as they ran but their was so much pandemonium around them that it was easier then it should have been to make their way down main street toward the station.

And he caught the glimpse that changed it all. It was red hair running. It was red hair and hope. "CLAIRE! CLAIRE!" But she couldn't hear him over the horror. Of course not. She disappeared into the park.

They should have known their luck was going to run out. He tried to chase her, but there was no chasing anything.

Turning the corner to maple brought their luck to an end.

Barreling down the street toward them was an elephant. Not the kind of elephant that implies a big secret that is unspoken, oh no. This was a real elephant. A real ** _infected_ **elephant and it was mad as hell.

It swung its great head from side to side and sent people flying. A woman was tossed high up into the air and tumbled down to be flattened beneath its pounding feet. A man was lifted on its trunk and sent up and over its back to smash into a parked car. The cars alarm started blaring.

The group broke apart as it charged straight between them. There was no time to worry about who was where and what was happening. It became very quickly a fight for your own life.

Chris rolled around a van, hoping for a moments cover but it was in vain. The elephant smashed the van out of the way with a squeal of metal and the crunch of broken glass. Of course it was focused on him. Why not?

He hurried down a side street trying to lure it away from the rest of the group. "GET TO THE STATION! FIND CLAIRE!" He yelled it even as he ran.

Of course he didn't realize until it was too late that the only thing between him and death was Raccoon City Cemetary. Not exactly the best place for hiding from an enormous rampaging elephant.

Left with no choice he rushed the gates to the cemetery. With one hand he gripped the iron of the gate and started climbing. Like an insect he scurried to the top of the gate and flipped himself over, plummeting the eight feet down the other side.

"CHRIS!" Alyssa was running toward the gates. She gripped and climbed after him, racing. He met her halfway, leaping up to grip her as she rolled over the top.

He landed and they took off, boots slapping the pavement even as the gates behind them gave a metallic scream and crashed beneath the bulk of the thing pursuing him. They cut left, racing full tilt up an embankment and then zagged right moving like the wind toward a row of mausoleums. This was where the rich were buried, he figured maybe he could lose the thing in the tall monuments.

"Kids?" He shouted and Alyssa returned, "With Kevin and David!"

It had to be good enough.

The hope of hiding in the big stone monuments was a brief one.

The sound of stone crumbling told him that was only wishful thinking and they cut left again, firing out of the mausoleums and racing toward the south exit of the cemetery. That exit would put them miles from the station but they wouldn't be far from the zoo. Maybe he could lead it back there and lose it somewhere inside.

But he'd never get the chance.

Because something worse than dumbo was chasing him through the cemetary. He skidded, he fell, and he scrambled on his ass to backward as it lifted that enormous gun on him and roared, "STARZZZZZZZ!"

The terror struck into him and nearly stopped his heart as he gasped, "What the fuck is that!?"

Alyssa screamed, "Oh, god, RUNNN!" and threw herself atop him, taking them both in a roll across the grass. The world burst with fear as it roared for blood.

And then it opened fire into the burning night.


	14. A Cabin in the Woods

**Raccoon City**

* * *

 **Raccoon City, Pennsylvania**

 **September 26, 2018 –**

 **A Cabin in the Woods**

* * *

For Claire, the fall of the Apple Inn wouldn't be nearly as fast.

She knew she had to get moving here. Chris was out there. She had to find him.

The only way to find her brother was to start looking. She couldn't do that in this "safe haven." She had to keep going. Even if she was so tired she could barely stand.

Deciding to check on her jacket, Claire left the little room and moved down the hall to the linen one. It was warmer inside, the sound of dryers tossing wet clothes was almost soothing. She found her jacket hanging up while it air dried, nicely washed and carefully hand cleaned by some considerate person at the Inn. Someone hadn't yet mended the broken zipper, but she could do that herself when she had a minute. Her hands touched the buttery red leather and trembled, pissing her off.

 _Really?_ Her mind taunted her. _This is when you lose it? You've lived, girl, you're alive. Get it the fuck together and stop spazzing out._

She put her face in the clean leather and breathed, picturing her brother. _She was clutching her mother's pillow, refusing to let go. She wouldn't get in the Jeep to leave their house. She wouldn't go. She wanted to stay there and die with them._

 _And he said, "Claire, it's not goodbye here. It's not the end. It's a new beginning. It's not easy. It's just the way it is. Sometimes? You just have to get up and keep going. That's the only way to stay alive."_

Was "staying alive" all there was in anymore? Was that all that was left?

There was a small sound of the door opening and she turned to look over her shoulder. Admittedly, he looked fucking good in a white button down shirt, that little gray vest and the red tie, a shoulder holster, and jeans. The tie was loose at the unbuttoned collar, the sleeves pushed up his nicely muscled forearms. He looked - what? Like a PI or something in a Humphrey Bogart movie. It suited him almost as well as the tattered uniform he'd left behind when they'd found safety here.

His hair was wet and slicked back off his face.

His neck was ringed in bruises and his hair looked dark damp and sorta plastered to his head like it was. It gave the illusion of being short and left that stunning face pale and tired. He'd had someone stitch up his left eyebrow at some point because he had a tiny butterfly bandage over it and another at his hairline. He had the start of a pretty good black eye and two scratches near that perfect little cleft in his chin.

She was stupid, mooning over some butt chin guy. Stupid.

He shifted, lifting a hand as if he'd touch her, and then letting it drop. His hair tumbled over one eye, dripping water onto his white shoulder. "...you ok?"

She wasn't. She was so tired. She was so scared. She was almost defeated. But she couldn't give up. Chris was out there. She felt that in her goddamn bones.

And she whispered, "...I miss my brother."

Well...that was just...that-that was just lame, wasn't it? Admitting her weakness to the hot cop that nearly killed her, arrested her, and kept popping up to taunt her with his butt chin. Lame to be weak by such a dork... the same dork that almost died saving her. That carried her to safety while she panicked. That never asked for her thanks and refused to leave her side.

 _That_ cop. The wonderful creature. Who'd humped on top of another girl calling her name.

Sympathetically, he hesitantly took her arm above the elbow. "I'm sorry, Claire. We'll find him. I won't stop until we find him. I promise."

Yeah...that cop. That one. Who was so loyal it was hurting her to be around him.

She shook her head, scanning his face in the small room. "...damn it, Leon. Why are you like that?"

He blinked, shaking his head at her. "I don't understand."

"I know you don't. Which is why it's so much worse...I lied."

He scanned her face, looking more confused. "You don't miss your brother?"

She shook her head, she turned and gripped two handfuls of that white shirt, "That's not-I didn't...I'm screwing this up..."

His heart kinda lodged in his throat and he murmured, "Just say it, Claire."

And she hissed, "I know I've been kinda nuts. I want to explain."

"It's ok. It's been a shitty night man. Seriously."

"Yeah. But it's worse for me."

He tilted his head at her, looking sympathetic, "Yeah. Because of your brother."

"Yeah...and because I like you too..damn you."

Hoarsely, he queried, "Yeah?"

"Yeah. Yeah. I can't stop seeing blood. Help me. Ok? Help me."

There was a soft racket of clothes as she pushed him back against the wall. A shirt was unceremoniously ripped off a hanger and hit his face, tumbling to the floor. It only took a handful of seconds for the blood in his head to hit his groin and make him insane.

Apparently, he'd lied. He was still going to picture her face. He was also, apparently, going to kiss it.

His hands headed straight for her ass, cupping it to drag her against him and rub. She shifted hers to his face to bring him to her. A shirt fell on her face and he missed her mouth. Instead, he went for her neck.

Lord. She was burning up.

His hands shifted to the back of her thighs and picked her up. Impressed, she let him, looping her legs around his waist as he walked the to the dryer. He set her on it and stepped between.

Claire gripped his face, rubbing their mouths together, and she gasped, "Kiss me, ok? Kiss me, Kennedy. Now."

"Right. Shit. Ok." He cupped her face and pulled it up to him to lay a kiss on him that would blow the top of her head off and the door opened beside them.

They let go of each other and Claire rolled off the dryer, putting her face in her hands.

The person rounded the narrow corner and found just Claire. Leon was hidden in the clothes. It was just a woman looking to wash her children's things. She moved to a washer, soundlessly. Her face was all bruises and stitches. What had she lived through?

Jesus. This was a place of _survival._ Claire felt the shame of knowing she'd made it about fucking. What kind of whore was she!?

But it was more simple than that. She knew that too. She'd diverted her pain to pleasure. Was it really so wrong? She wanted to see anything but the blood. Anything.

She turned her head to say something and found him gone. He'd apparently felt the same way. She put her face back in her hands and shivered. She was just leaving the linen room when he snatched her wrist.

Surprised, she let him drag her two doors down and tug her inside. It was dark in his room. Was he alone? She didn't know. She didn't ask. Her heart was beating so hard.

She opened her mouth to beg him to take her - and he said, "I don't want to be alone tonight."

Shit. SHIT. Her heart wasn't just beating hard, it was kinda beating for him. She gripped his arms, running her hands up and down them, and whispered, "...me either."

He led her to the bed. They both knew they could rip off their clothes and fuck on it. They could do that.

But they laid down together with him curled against her back. He clutched her close and she hugged his arm around her. Apparently, there were things they needed tonight more than an orgasm.

She whispered, "What if he's dead? What will I do?"

Leon whispered back, "Honor him...and survive."

A good answer. A scary answer. She kept his arm pressed to her belly denying it.

And they fell asleep just holding on to each other.

* * *

 **September 27, 2018**

* * *

"Leon, wake up!"

He did. Instantly. His eyes popped open as he rolled to his feet.

Claire had thrown on a men's dress shirt in white over her tank top. She had even left a little tie loosely knotted in a flair for fashion that fit her. She looked like a nice compliment to him - not that it mattered.

Because she hissed, "You smell that?"

He did. He did smell it. The Apple Inn was on fire.

She gripped his hand and dragged him to the window of their room. They were on the third floor, so jumping down wasn't an option here, but going out the fire escape might be. Sadly for them, the fire escape wasn't out their window. It was four windows down from them.

Leon touched the door knob to their room. It wasn't yet hot, telling him they could probably get out the door and maybe to that fire escape. He started to open the door and Yoko burst in, gasping. "Hurry!"

They did. No one asked a single question. They just went out the door into the acrid stench of smoke and destruction.

Fire had climbed from wallpaper to single. It had left a smoldering, cracking, destructive walk of roasting floor boards between them and the bend in the hallway to the length of hallway where room 304 waited. Leon gripped Yoko's arm and commanded, above the roar of flames, "We need to get to the fire escape! Grab the comforter off the bed in there! HURRY!"

Yoko hurried into the room, grabbing the heavy down comforter at his instruction. He gripped it and looped it over himself. Without a word, Yoko and Claire tucked in against his sides. They huddled under the comforter, moving over the firey floorboards, quick as bunnies. They still felt the heat but the comforter saved them the burn of cast off energy.

They had to drop the comforter the moment they were through the thick of it and run. It smoldered behind them, lighting the wall on fire as it went up. There was a loud WHOOOSH of wallpaper and paint likely still full of lead turning into a blaze of glory, and Leon kicked open the door to 304. The zombie beyond was hit by the door and staggered.

Leon followed him into the room and kicked, sending him sprawling into the open bathroom. He slammed the door on the zombie and shouted, "Help me block the door."

Claire threw the comforter from the bed onto the floor and sealed the smoke from beneath it. He said, "Get in the closet while I open the window! If it creates a draft, it'll kill me quickly but you'll be able to get out after that."

Claire shook her head and he shouted, "Please, Claire! Just do it!"

Yoko tugged her into the closet and Leon ran to the window. They waited, Claire feeling sick as she anticipated the boom of the room exploding with flames and him burning alive, and he called, "Let's go! NOW!"

They raced out of the closet, Yoko almost leaping out the window to the wrought iron balcony. She started down, hurrying, and the clang on her shoes was muffled by the sirens, the screams, and the sound of burning hope. Claire followed her, jumping levels as they went.

In the courtyard, a cop yelled at them, "Go! Hurry! Follow the others! Out through the garden entrance into the park!"

The wind carried her name. She was sure of it. She spun back, looking for the voice. But it didn't matter. How many Claire's were there in the world? She was now just desperate for any sign of Chris.

Enough to believe the wind.

They ran for it, not pausing, not stopping. The world ran with them. It was a mess. It was mass hysteria...and it was failing. The second they turned into the park, Leon heard the screaming.

A woman was yanking on her child, who was being eaten by a pack of dogs in a horrendous tableau of death. The child was long dead, but she wouldn't give up. There was blood and chunks of body parts everywhere as they devoured him and came for her.

Leon jerked both women down the bike path before the dogs saw them. They heard people screaming and begging for help as they ran. They didn't stop. He let the guilt push him into a flat out run with Yoko and Claire beside him.

They cut left and ran up an embankment when a handful of undead shambled toward them soaked in old blood. Yoko scrambled and Leon jerked her backpack, tossing her the rest of the way. They ran across the main concourse, the clock tower looming above them like a perverted Big Ben. It was smoking, it was sagging to one side - someone had battled in that damn thing and nearly destroyed it.

They were almost to the street when the sound of a motorfiring up had him grabbing both women to drag them to a stop...as the thing that had killed Brad Vickers turned the corner into the dull light from the moon. Claire stopped running so fast that she fell on her butt and scrambled back. Yoko turned and ran the other way.

Leon and Claire took up the charge after her as the thing lifted it's weaponized arm on them and it cut loose. It blasted the ground like a .50 caliber atop a tank. Claire screamed and Leon shoved her to the right. The bullets cut the grass up where she'd been, tossing chunks of sod and dirt into the air. They followed Yoko into the forest at a neck breaking pace.

The trees closed around them as they ran and Claire caught a stitch in her side first. She staggered, Leon grabbed her arm and kept her up, and they kept going.

There was no way to know if it was still coming. The sound of its machine gun fire was growing further away as they ran. It had likely engaged the cops still in the park.

They ran for what seemed forever before Claire knew she couldn't run anymore. She was in shape, but she wasn't _that_ in shape. She just wasn't.

Claire gasped, sharply, "I gotta stop! I'm gonna hurl!"

And Yoko shouted, "THERE!"

There was a small cabin overgrown by trees at the bend in the path. They ran toward it and Yoko kicked it twice until it opened. Claire hurried through and collapsed to her hands and knees and Leon closed the door.

The cabin was sparse, mostly empty. Just a bed, an old wooden stove, and a very angry man in dirty overalls standing beside a shovel. There was a sound of surprise and they were staring down the barrel of a big gun.

The man behind it was older than dirt. He looked like father time with no hair and agespots. He was so old he was probably around when Eisenhower was President.

He said, in a strong accent, "Geeet out of my hut."

German? Russian? What was that?

Claire gasped, "Please...Please...we can't. Not yet. That thing out there -"

"I know about that thing out there. It is here for cops. I am not cops. I am just me. I am park janitor. I am not cops."

Leon lifted his hands, showing himself unarmed. His guns was still in the holster on his thigh. "Sir. Please. I promise we'll leave just as soon as the coast is clear. I promise."

The man dropped the hammer on his big .44 Magnum. "You will leave now. Get out. This eez my house."

Yoko whispered, "But we'll die..."

"I don't care about that. I am safe here. You are not welcome. Go to the bridge and back into the city. Get out."

Leon opened his mouth to argue and the glass window beside them shivered. The man turned the big gun on it and the window shattered. It blew apart like someone had thrown a bomb. It rained chunks and shrapnel down on them as Yoko shouted in surprise and Claire covered her head.

A bee the size of a pitbull came through the window.

It buzzed so loudly, its wings flapped so strongly that it churned up tornados of dust and wind, and it angled toward the man with the magnum. He shouted, "I VILL KILL YOU ALOT!"

He shot, the bee took the bullet, and it drove its foot long stinger into his face as it attacked.

The stinger sank into his eye. He screamed so high and loud that it made the back of Leon's neck hurt and Yoko grabbed for the bee with a shout of fear. Claire screamed, "YOKO! DON'T!"

The bee turned on the small girl and Leon hit it broad side with the shovel. The clang of metal filled the room, the bee was thrown into the wall like he'd just swung for home, and the buzzing was cut off. He shouted, "We can't stay here! We have to go for that bridge! Claire?"

"I'm ok! I swear! Let's go!"

The man on the ground was still twitching and seizing. His face had erupted with bulbous bursting pustules. They were like hematomas of infection scattered around his ruined eye socket. The bulging pockets of rot encroached on the other side of his face and made him look like the Elephant man. He just kept...screaming.

Claire grabbed the doorknob and Leon called, "Wait! Wait."

He drove the shovel into the face of the dying man. Yoko squeaked in horror. Claire gasped. It was brutal, it was, but it was mercy. It was mercy. No one deserved to die that way. This was a gift.

The shovel bisected his ruined face in a crunch of bone and brains. It scooped the top from the bottom in a jagged diagonal gash. Leon shouted, "GO!"

And they left him behind in a pool of green pus and white mucous. His face had burst with all those pockets like pimples popped in tandem. It stunk in the cabin of rotten eggs and burning hair. Claire gagged as they hit the path outside and heard the bees.

Yoko was ahead of them and up the path toward the narrow bridge. They could hear the water that meant it crossed the river. The second they hit the old planks, the drop off was massive. It rushed toward the lower edges of nothing. It was all tossing water and splattering mist where it struck the rocks in a waterfall. It might have been pretty - if they weren't running for their lives.

Halfway across, a big mutated man waited. He was a pus filled nightmare like the man in the cabin. He grabbed at Yoko and she ducked, shoving with her shoulder. His bulk hit the ropes that suspended the bridge over certain death and he flipped over, tumbling into the darkness. A bee made a lunge for Yoko as she stumbled to gain her feet with the impact of shoving him, and Leon took it out of the sky with the dead man's magnum.

The big gun bucked, he nearly went over bracing on the rickety bridge, but the shot blew the thing into two parts. It followed the dead man into the waterfall.

Claire glanced over her shoulder and shook her head. He was fucking incredible with that gun. He'd have made one heck of a cop if he'd had the chance.

But he was now far behind them since he'd stopped to brace and shoot. They hit the edge of the bridge and climbed up the other side, racing into the dull light that looked like the street beyond it. The path brought them out on the courtyard by the hospital.

A handful of soldiers were there, shouting directions. They were being forced toward the hospital. Claire fought against them, shouting, "WAIT! We left someone! He's coming! Wait! LEON!"

She didn't see him come out from the path. They ushered her into the hospital and the commotion was everywhere. There was no chance to stop. She was moved down a narrow walk with men shoving her and Yoko in front of her glancing back.

They were pushed past a group of grieving children and a couple of dead bodies on cots. She might not have noticed, but clutched in the hand of one beneath the sheet was the medal his parent's had given him after he'd graduated flight school. St. Christopher - patron saint of long travels and protection. She might have thought it wasn't him. It was a common enough medal...save for the engraving on the back.

"C- Fly safe. Fly true. Fly home."

Claire jerked against the man pulling her. "STOP! You hear me!? I said let me go!"

She grabbed the medal as they pulled her passed the body. The sheet shifted and she could see the dark hair sticking out the top. She could see the edge of the uniform - gray and ugly peagreen. The S.T.A.R.S. badge winked at her as the sheet slipped...and she could see the bullet holes.

The corpse was riddled in them.

The thing that hunted S.T.A.R.S. had found her brother. It wasn't possible. It couldn't be possible. It didn't make any sense.

She fought like a lion now, shouting, "NO! No! Chris! CHRIS!? NO!"

No.

He couldn't be dead. He couldn't be dead. He couldn't be.

"CHRIS!"

They didn't care. They shoved her into an elevator with a handful of other people. When she fought against them, they grabbed her and held her still. She shouted, "That's my brother back there!"

"There are no survivors back there, miss. Relax or we'll have to put you down."

"LET GO! Are you fucking stupid!? I need to see him! Get your hands off me!" She shoved and twisted. She dropped a shoulder and fought. "Leon!? Where is Leon!?"

And someone stuck a needle in her neck. Yoko shouted now too, "HEY! Don't! Get OFF her!"

She clutched for the other girl, gasping, "Please...it can't be him. I can't...Yoko! That's my...that's..find Leon..tell him..to find Chris..Yoko..."

Yoko tried to hold on to her, crying softly, "I'll find him Chris. I'll find him. I swear. I'll find Leon."

The dark ate her world, tossing Claire into the roll of it. Bastards, they'd hit her with something to put her down. Bastards. She needed to find her brother.

She needed to find Leon. She needed-

She tumbled forward into the dark.


	15. Leading Ladies

**Raccoon City**

* * *

 **Raccoon City, Pennsylvania**

 **September 27, 2018 –**

 **Leading Ladies**

* * *

It was a woman that would get Leon Kennedy mortally wounded.

She started out making a scene in the cafeteria of the hospital. She was pretty and loud and rich - based on the fancy dress and heels she wore. She was demanding her own space in a refugee type environment.

She was mouthy and rude, shouting at clinicians and volunteers, knocking over trays of supplies. She wanted someone to CHECK HER OUT NOW. But no one cared what she wanted.

The more upset she became, the more she was ignored.

She finally ended up stalking out of the hospital in her designer coat like she'd take on the burning city in a Burberry trench coat and red Jimmy Choos.

He kept picturing Elza Walker. The guilt was almost too painful to bear. He hadn't yet made his peace with her death and his role in it. He couldn't.

He kept hearing her scream.

It echoed in his ears as he tried to rest. It taunted him as he tried to focus. He'd let her die.

Could he really sit here while someone else did the same?

It was suicide to follow her.

But what else could he do?

He told Kevin, "I have to go after her."

"That's stupid man. She's a dumb broad. She'll get you killed."

"Maybe. But I can't let her go alone. Tell Claire to meet me at the station like we'd planned ok? Please?"

They held gazes. Finally, Kevin shrugged, "Dude...whatever. Be careful."

"Like a virgin on her wedding night." He took off at a jog to follow the angry debutante.

He caught up to her as she stormed down the steps of the hospital and cut left through the dark street. "Hey!"

Surprised, she turned, and her short black hair shivered in the flickering fire light. Pretty, asian, and young - she gave him a long suffering look, "Go back inside, hero. I don't need any help from you."

He jogged up to her, shaking his head, "I'm a cop. Let me do what I can. Where are you going? It's not safe out here."

She gave him an almost angry face, "Wherever I want. I need to find my boyfriend, John. He's missing. He's here somewhere. I think he might have gone to the station. He's a scientist. He'd be smart."

She was in some kind of hurry too because she just kept booking it. He struggled to keep up, keeping his gun pointed down as he ran. "Ok. But he wouldn't want you running around by yourself Miss..."

She sighed and shrugged, "Wong. Ada Wong."

"Ada...I'm Leon Kennedy. Let's go back to the hospital. We can try to get someone to check around for John."

"No. He's not there. I looked. And I'm wasting time in that camp of crippled losers. I need to find him. Now." She turned down a side street, running a little, "Go back though. I don't want you to get hurt being a hero."

Leon shook his head again, "I can't let you go alone. You'll get killed."

Ada rolled her eyes, "I can handle myself, I promise you." She turned down an alley and slipped between a ragged fence to skim between two buildings. "Go find some other damsel in distress, handsome. I'm fine. Seriously."

"Maybe so. But I'm a cop. I have to stay with you. I need to get to the station anyway. So..."

Ada rolled her eyes again but let him follow her. She was fast, he'd give her that. She didn't stop. She just hurried like her heels were made out of boots with wings on them.

They turned through a small alley and ended up standing beside Kendo's Gun Shop. It was glass and steel, and yards and yards of weapons. His brows shot up.

Ada shrugged and pushed open the side door. The shop was tossed. It was a mess of glass and destruction. Someone had picked it apart to get guns and ammo. It was just bones and bad luck now. They'd have to really dig around for what was left.

The mess had a single man standing in it, aiming at them. "Freeze."

They did, hands raised. He eyed them, shrugged, and gestured with his head. "Help yourself. There's not much left. Looters picked me clean when it first happened."

He was older, given to fat around his middle, in a stained undershirt and overalls. He looked tired, defeated, and was splattered in old blood. He leaned on the counter while Ada picked up a small bow-gun from the mess of shattered glass and helped herself to a selection of bolts.

Leon grabbed all the loose .44 ammunition for the hand cannon he'd taken off the dead janitor in the cabin.

Leon said, "I'm Leon."

And the man answered, "Kendo. John Kendo. This was my shop...before it became another disaster."

Ada gave him a narrow look as she slung the bow-gun over her shoulder. "You should run, Mr. Kendo. There's nothing here worth saving."

Leon gave him a nod, "We're going to the station. If you want to come with us. Safety in numbers right?"

Ada looked put out by the thought, but she didn't argue.

Kendo started to answer and the blare of horn drew their attention. An eighteen wheeler was barreling down the road outside. It was honking and swerving. The man in the cab had a zombie trying to eat his face. The world slowed down to a crawl.

It was like slow motion horror.

They ran, they scattered, they made it out the side door - and the front of the shop exploded under the force of that tractor trailer truck smashing through it like it was nothing. Glass shattered and flew in shards of death and destruction. Brick collapsed. Fire erupted in a burp toward the blackened sky.

They staggered and fell, Kendo letting out a cry of rage and pain. The end of his shop, in a blaze of glory.

Leon grabbed his arm to drag him into a run. Because they were no longer alone.

The fire brought the zombies.

They poured out of the darkness in hoards and horror. They moaned and reached. They grabbed and grunted. Their faces flickered with necrotic flesh that dripped like candle wax in the flickering firelight.

There was no time to stop and reboot here. They just ran for it. Ada didn't pause. She just ran like the wind. Kendo was too fat.

He kept stopping to get his breath.

Something popped out of the darkness beside him and he fought with it, shouting. Leon roared, "GET DOWN!" And Kendo dropped, kicking the zombie from the ground.

Leon blew it away with a boom from the .44 and blasted it clean off its fight.

Ada was nearly lost in the dark now.

Leon shouted after her, "ADA! WAIT!"

But she kept on running.

Forced to make a choice, Leon let her run. He stopped to wait for Kendo, helping him to get moving again. But it didn't last long. They were blocked near the alley way by a bunch of industrial trash bins. The metal canisters had been shoved together to block the onslaught.

Ada leaped over them and slid across, landing on the other side. Leon shouted, "I'll boost you over."

But Kendo shoved him, panting and pale. "I can't...I'm done. Go without me!"

"I won't leave you!" Leon tried to force him on but Kendo shoved him again and flashed his shoulder. It was bleeding, it was savaged. It was bitten.

He shook his head, "Go! I'm DONE for! You see!? I'm done! GO! And let me hold them here!"

Leon denied him, holding on. "Come with me! I can still help you!"

"How? Brave kid. You're a fucking hero, huh? You can't save everyone, hero." Somewhere in the dark, Ada started screaming.

Kendo nodded, eyes flashing, "See? Save the girl, hero. NOW RUN!" Kendo turned back and ran screaming at the hoard chasing them. He threw himself at them, using his tremendous bulk to take some down in a tackle of glory.

The fire split the sky, red and white and swirling. It was a song of bones and smoke. It followed him as Leon ran, listening to the hoard devour John Kendo.

His battle cry was lost in a gurgle and slurp. His belly torn open by curious hands. There was the wet plop of flesh and failure.

Leon couldn't breathe. He didn't know if it was the running, the smoke, or the failure. All three were choking him.

Hero. He couldn't save anyone.

Some hero.

He shouted, "ADA!"

And she cried, "Leon! HELP ME!"

He spun around a corner and she was trapped against a car with a zombie pinning her to the hood and one clawing for her ankles beneath the cruiser. He shot the one trying to eat her face while running. It was...kinda heroic actually.

The shot took the zombie in the shoulder and spun it around so Ada could kick it off her. It went down, she kicked it again in the face, and she ended up being pulled over to her belly the one grabbing her other leg.

But she was ready now. She rolled and stabbed it in the back of the head with an arrow from her bow-gun.

Leon was almost to her when the engine roaring drew his attention. A motorcycle flew out of the smoke like some kind of hound from hell. It spun tires and roared. The man on it was almost split in half, bleeding and screaming. He had a zombie eating him where it had grabbed him around the neck.

Leon tackled Ada in a full run. The motorcycle hit the cruiser where they stood and spun it sideways. It smashed into the pair of them and sent them tumbling.

The motorcycle struck the far wall and went up in flames, the screaming man on it burned and shrieked like a siren, and the cruiser kept on spinning.

Leon rolled Ada beneath him even is it tossed them around and sent them rolling. The metal pierced and stabbed. It slashed and jabbed.

And the front fender pinned him to the wall when he shoved her away to spare her.

Ada stumbled and fell, spun back, and gasped. He was sandwiched to the wall with the cruiser pinning him from the waist down. Like a moth on a spit or something. He was bleeding badly, stuck there and half slumped. She was betting he was bisected or something.

But she opened the door of the cruiser and shoved the car in neutral anyway. She pushed at it, Leon shoved at it, and he fell forward when it was free.

He was bleeding everywhere.

And the hoard was still coming.

He stumbled, Ada glanced at him, considered. She should leave him. She knew that. He was going to get her killed.

But he'd saved her life. She couldn't just leave him. She grabbed him and shoved him down the narrow alley beside them. She commanded, "Go! That way! Turn left and climb over the boxes. Cut down through the underwalk and it will take you to the street outside the station. I will keep the hoard after me."

Surprised, he stumbled, but he was dizzy. He was bleeding everywhere. "No! They'll kill you!"

"Stupid boy...you'll get me killed in your condition. Go! And let me protect you." Ada shoved him, hard. "Now. You can't help anyone if you're dead."

She was right. He was so badly wounded. He'd done what he could and gotten himself all fucked up. He was in trouble. He needed to stop the bleeding.

He needed to get to the station and hope to god there was help there.

He stumbled, shaking, and couldn't find the strength to argue. He just let her run, creating a ruckus, drawing the hoard.

And he stumbled into the dark like a coward.

It was a woman in a trench coat that would get Leon Kennedy mortally wounded...and a woman in a leather jacket that would save his life.

* * *

The wasteland continued to burn. The groaning filled the stifling air.

A chorus of corruption.

A symphony of death.

He'd never understand how it was possible for the world to be on fire while it wept in remorse. The rain beat down on the heads of the undead like tears from Heaven. He slipped in his own blood – leaving a hand print smeared over the door of the cruiser. Red, blue, red, blue – the myriad of colors swirled prettily across his face as he staggered.

Where were they? Had it worked? He was dying. He didn't need a doctor to tell him that. He was dying. How long did he have?

He was still faster than the dead that stalked him. His hand shifted off his stomach, watching the spill of bright red in the boiling shadows. He was going to join them soon enough. This wound? Mortal. He knew it. Even as he struggled to get some place and die with a little dignity. He knew it.

He looked out over the blistering black sky, watching the lightning streak and immortalize the face of the clock tower in the distance. He'd been a week late getting to this city. A week late to help during the outbreak. A week late to save a soul.

Serve and protect – it was written on the squad car he left behind him in the burning square. Had he? They were safe. Wherever they were? They were free of the nightmare. Surely. Surely he'd done, at least that. At least that.

At least.

His gloved hand slipped loosely over the handle for the door. RPD.

The last bastion of hope. Surely he'd find someone else alive inside. They were COPS. They were saviors. He couldn't be the only cop left alive in this necropolis. He couldn't.

Alive?

The door opened and spilled him uselessly the tiles inside. Cool, he thought desperately, as he crawled forward and kicked the door shut behind him – sealing out the dead that hungered for his flesh and blood. The air conditioning was still working because this building was cool as a cucumber.

And clean.

And **empty.**

Softly, he breathed, "Fuck…please no." His bloody fingers gripped the railing in the massive lobby. Beautiful. Tremendous. The article in Architectural Digest had hailed it as a MODERN DAY MASTERPIECE – AN HOMAGE TO GOTHIC REVIVALISM.

The fountain burbled happily in the center of the breathtaking foyer. He wanted to marvel at the magnificence of it all. But he slipped in the blood from his own belly and tumbled the two steps down from the platform to the slick tiles instead.

He was going to die in this beautiful lobby on his first day on the job.

The doors creaked. He rolled to his back and backed up against the amazing fountain. He raised his weapon as it burst open – and a woman came through, sweaty, filthy, and panicked.

She raised her gun on him and his arm, shaking so badly he could barely keep it aloft, dropped his own pistol to his lap. The world shimmered gray and black. Gray and red. Gray and dark. He whispered, "…don't shoot…I'm a human."

Although he wasn't sure for how much longer. He slipped into the darkness staring at the end of her barrel – and wondering if it would be mercy for her to just put him down.

How else would he ever escape this nightmare?

Two days ago - he'd stepped out of his door and into the world of survival horror.

He was ready, so ready, for it to just be...game over.

He wasn't even afraid any more as he went to the floor in a pool of his own blood.

The leather jacket creaked as Jill Valentine knelt, tilted her head, and didn't see a single bite in all the blood. Who was he?

She considered leaving him there...but he wasn't dead. And he wasn't infected.

He needed help. Hadn't she stayed behind to help?

She leveraged him up, hooking him over her shoulders and got the balance of him.

And she carried him further into the station.

* * *

Later, Claire would wonder what had skipped out of her mind as she awoke in the hospital and just knew, in her guts, that she had to get out of there.

It was impossible to say really. It wasn't even something she could make too much sense of without digging. She awoke in a room on a bed, surrounded by other survivors. She tore apart the hospital trying to find her "brother." But the body she'd seen was lost to her.

Was it Chris?

Or was she simply too traumatized to know what she'd really seen?

She didn't know what to think. She only knew she couldn't lay in wait anymore. She had to get to the station. The R.P.D. had the answers. To what? She didn't know. But that had been the original plan.

They'd go there.

They? They. Not just her brother. Not anymore. Her brother and Leon. At least here, it was time to be honest. Leon Kennedy mattered.

She didn't know how much, but it was something. She needed to find him.

The hospital was flush with the sick and the dying. She picked through them searching for him. But she couldn't get much information.

But it was easy to gather around with those she knew.

There was the plumber David King, the waitress Cindy, the familiar face of Kevin Ryman. Yoko scurried toward her as she saw her and they hugged. Jim Chapman from the bar was with them and Mark the security guard who'd lost Bob in the beginning.

They were all there. For now? They were all safe.

Without missing a beat, Claire told them, "I need to get to the R.P.D. Who's with me?"

Kevin nodded, rubbing at her arm. "We were just talking about that. Leon's headed there too. The hospital won't hold up long. Too many victims, not enough protection...but the station...it's a good place to make a stand or wait out an evacuation."

Mark nodded, "If anyone worth anything is alive, they'd have gone there."

In agreement, they took it upon themselves to flee their new found relative safety and head toward the station. They confiscated some weapons from a pile of them kept on the first floor and went out the back against the advice of the military. But what did the military care about a handful of stupid survivors?

They didn't. They let them go and washed their hands of it.

As they were going, Claire overhead one mutter, "Doesn't matter. It'll be full on sanitation here soon enough."

Sanitation?

Was he talking about nuking the city?

She was kinda afraid that's what he meant. The problem was that the rumors said the roads were blocked, the city quarantined. What would they do? Kill everyone left alive in it?

Hell, she'd seen this zombie flick before. Of course they would.

With little choice, they made toward the R.P.D. station. Kevin glanced at her once as they cut across a burning alley through what was left of the basketball park. "You ok?"

"Just thinking about what happens when we all get stuck here. Sanitation means destruction right? They'll drop a bomb and turn this town into a crater."

Kevin sighed, nodding a little, "Probably. But the thing is...I remember hearing talk one day about a subway. Not the main one...but a private one...it was all pretty hush hush."

Claire arched her brows, "What?"

"Yeah...for officials and shit. I think someone mentioned it was implemented when they revamped the R.P.D. building. Maybe if we're lucky..."

She finished the thought, "We can get out through the station."

"Yeah, why not right?"

The rounded the corner of the alley way to find themselves back where they'd started: the main entrance of the R.P.D. Luckily, this time they seemed to be without the horrible freak with the machine gun arm.

A burning squad car sat off to one side, a testament to how safe the station really was.

With little more than a glance at it, Claire hurried to the front doors. David and the rest were right behind her.

Inside the station there was a deafening silence, save for the soft rush of water from the giant fountain that sat before them.

David said, "Should we barricade the doors?"

Kevin was shaking his head. "No. If other people come, we have to let them in."

Claire was already running through the lobby, shouting. "Leon! Leon are you here?"

"Is anyone hurt?" George was going between each person, checking them. "Any bites or claw marks?"

"Not yet." Jim had started to shake, just a little. "Listen, if any of those bastards bites me. I want someone to promise to put me out of misery."

David nodded. "Same goes."

Cindy was at the desk atop the rise, checking the computer and the phones.

"Computers still online. Phones have stopped working. So calling for help is out."

Kevin mounted the stairs. "What about internet access?"

She shook her head. "No go. This is just the terminal for logging in guests, opening doors in the station. It's not internet ready."

She was tapping keys, her face thoughtful. "It's got a layout of the station though. Anyone good with maps?"

Yoko stepped up next to her. "Let me try." She tapped more keys. "We need a key card to gain access to the lower levels but it looks like…" She trailed off. "There's a subway under this station." She sounded surprised.

"What?" Mark was there, peering at the screen. "A subway? Under a police station?"

Yoko nodded. "Yeah looks like it. See here and here. Those are subway markers, tracks."

Jim whistled. "Fuck. These cops were prepared huh Kev?"

Kevin looked just as surprised as the rest of them. "I have no idea. We weren't allowed past the first basement level where the cells are. You had to have first level clearance to even get down there."

Jim shook his head. "Fucking suits. It looks like they were expecting something and had an escape route."

David added. "Yeah but only if you were some hot shit big up guy. The mayor…"

Cindy perked up. "Chief Irons."

Kevin looked at her.

"He's the Chief of Police."

"I know who he is."

She looked at him for a long moment. "Listen, his office is in this building. He's got to have a card key for that subway thing. We find it, we got a one way ticket out of this place."

As far as plans went, it wasn't half bad.

Mark said, "Shouldn't we wait though? To see if other survivors show up?"

Jim leaned forward. "What about your wife dude? And your kids?"

"They went to San Jose for the weekend. To visit Dee's mother." He took a deep breath. "I never loved that woman as much I do right this minute."

Cindy said, "Claire said Leon was supposed to be here. I think we should at least wait an hour, see if anyone shows up."

Kevin agreed. "Okay. Why not? If he isn't here, maybe he's on his way. Yoko, where's Chief Irons office?"

Yoko tapped keys. "Second floor, 3rd room on the right."

"Good. Cindy, Yoko and David get to the office, search high and low, see if you can find anything."

They nodded.

He looked at the screen. "The access to the subway system is through the basement."

Yoko said, "According to this, it's through a manhole in a cell at the back."

"Okay. I'll go check out the basement level, make sure it's clear."

Mark said, "I'll go with you."

Kevin nodded. "Jim and George wait here to see if anyone shows up. If no one does, wait for Cindy, Yoko and David to come back with the key." He looked at Claire. "Come with us. According to this map, there's access to the sewers in the basement, it's possible Leon knew it and came that way."

Claire nodded.

"Everyone meet here in an hour. Sixty minutes exactly. Who has a watch?"

George, Jim and Mark all had one.

"Ok George give yours to Cindy."

He did.

"Great. Anyone have any questions?"

Yoko said, "We got a problem Kevin."

He turned, looked over her shoulder. "What's that?"

She glanced at his face. "Well…it looks like a bunch of gibberish…"

Jim read out loud, "Symbol keys…praying hands…red and blue…what the fuck?"

Cindy said, "It's a puzzle…or more than one."

"Underground subway systems, puzzles. What kind of police station is this?" George sounded flabbergasted.

No one could blame him.

"One that fits right in with face eating zombies." Jim quipped and Claire realized he was right. They weren't cannibals, they were zombies.

"Well that complicates things." Kevin stared at the screen. "Says we need red and blue jewels…which could be fucking anywhere…"

He looked supremely pissed.

"Alright," He said after a moment, "The plan doesn't change until we know what these puzzle things are. Anyone comes across something messed up, do your best to solve it."

Nods all around.

"Okay. One hour."

Claire said, "Keep your eyes open for people hiding in here."

Jim added, "Yeah and zombies who want to eat your manly parts."

They parted ways leaving Jim and George taking up a watch at the front, Cindy, Yoko and David heading for the door at the base of the platform on the far left of the room.

Yoko turned the knob and said, "It's locked."

David lifted his gun to shoot it open when Cindy said, "Wait a minute." She stepped forward, pulled something slim and black out of her breast pocket and unrolled it.

David realized he was looking at a shiny set of lock picks. Impressed, he watched the reporter go to work on the lock.

Across the hall, Kevin, Mark and Claire hurried through the next doorway. It was a short hallway which curved sharply into stairs.

He took a deep breath and said, "Last one down is a rotten egg."

Claire said, quietly, under her breath, "Or a dead man."

She couldn't imagine the truth was going to be something she wanted to find. What she knew? She had to find Leon Kennedy. He was the last person in this city she was willing to lose now. He'd gone down out there trying to save her.

It was time to pay it back.

She just had to find him first.


	16. What Lurks Inside

**Raccoon City**

* * *

 **Raccoon City, Pennsylvania**

 **September 26, 2018 –**

 **What Lurks Inside**

* * *

7:16 pm

* * *

He couldn't stop weeping. He tried. He really tried. He really, really tried. But he'd loved her. He'd loved her so much.

Alisha. He couldn't get her out of his head. Alisha. She was so beautiful.

Even dead...she was beautiful.

He cradled her body in his arms, weeping quietly. The Mayor had died screaming. As he'd died, Brian Irons had leaned over him to whisper, "I will take care of Alisha."

The fear had followed the mayor to the grave.

He'd gotten Alisha to his office, safely. She'd been so happy to be free of the garage. He'd told her, "I will get us out, ok? I will get us out of here."

She'd believed him. She was so soft, so perfect. Her red hair, her big blue eyes, her flawless skin. She'd gnawed her lips while he'd worked on opening the sewer and the labs to set them free.

They'd go through his secret chambers and out that way. They'd never go through the parking garage. It wasn't safe. He couldn't risk her.

He'd cleared the finally doorway when she'd spoken, so soft and sweet, "Chief...what happens when we get out of here?"

He'd turned to watch her where she leaned on the desk. In her soft white dress. In her pretty sandals. Home from college, looking to see her Dad. Irons had spent all weekend with them. He knew she was less than half his age. He knew Michael would never agree to their being together.

So he simply...let the station get over run. It was...brash. It was drastic. But it let Alisha fall into his hands where she BELONGED. She belonged with him. They were meant to be together.

He didn't understand why she resisted him. He'd held her for a moment while she cried, witnessing her father fall under the hoard in the garage. She'd wept so prettily.

He'd kissed her forehead and her tears. He'd kissed her mouth...and she'd stopped him. Shoving on his chest, "Chief...what are you doing?"

So he'd confessed, "Alisha...I'm mad for you. Crazy. In love. Completely. I've pictured you a thousand times in my arms. Your father...he'd want us to be together now. Together always. Let's escape this nightmare...and be together."

She resisted, clearly upset over her father's death, "Chief...please. Let go of me."

She was so beautiful.

She'd come to love him. He was sure of that. She'd fought him, but she was so small. She was just ashamed to want him so much. He'd torn her panties and her dress to love her. He'd loved her on his desk because she needed him.

It wasn't rape. Rape was something bad guys did. He was SAVING her.

She'd cried and stopped fighting when he held her down. She wanted it. She wanted him. She was just afraid of what her dead father would think. She was afraid the world would judge them. That was it. She loved him too. She'd said so in his head a thousand times.

She'd laid on the desk after, staring at the wall. She didn't move. He tried to talk to her. She lay curled on her side staring like a doll. A sad one. A broken one.

Alisha. She was a bitch. A fool. A cunt. She broke so easily.

She was weak.

He would make her STRONG.

He'd rolled her over on the desk and she slopped, boneless, staring at him with dead eyes. He'd struck her face, twice, trying to get her to wake up. She'd whimpered, curled up, and cried.

Weak.

He would make her strong.

He caught the back of her neck and brought her close. She resisted, shoving at his chest, and he shoved her full of him again. But not his body. Not this time. His knife.

He stabbed her in the belly while she screamed.

Her blood was so warm. It was so wet. She was finally wet for him.

He wept, holding her body in his arms. He carried her while she went cold and brought her through his secret place. He went into the cage and down the stairs inside his box. He'd fix her.

He'd make her strong.

He'd stuff her full of himself, like his prizes, like his kills...like his victories...and keep her forever.

He paused at the little screen in his private playground. It was set up to resemble something beautiful. It was shackles and blood. It was torture and truth. It was a place he could revel in his hunt, for just a little longer.

Sometimes...he prayed they were still alive when he took them here.

The screen flickered and drew his eye as he laid Alisha down on the table. She looked so peaceful. He would enjoy embalming her. He would enjoy making her...his.

But she was on the screen. She was there, watching him. She was in the parking garage and talking. He couldn't hear her. But she was there.

It made no sense. She was in some kind of tie and hat. She was carrying a gun. How was she here? How was she there?

A sound startled him and made him look away. A pair of eyes peeped out from the grate above the room. He shouted, covering the woman on the table like they'd been caught _in flagrante. "_ Sherry!"

The eyes disappeared as the little girl gasped and ran into the ducts. She was still alive. She was still here.

She was heading to the parking garage to find Alisha's twin. Alisha...she was so beautiful. He would have her again. She was given to him...twice. TWICE.

So he could keep her here, with him, forever. And he so he could keep her alive...

His head turned to the wall with his shackles. Alive. There. In his playground. In his safe place. He'd bind her naked to the wall to touch her and fondle her. To feel her. She'd mewl prettily and beg for more. He'd fill her belly with babies to repopulate the city when it was just the strong who remained.

She'd love him. She'd want him.

And he'd keep her. He'd keep her.

To love her...forever.

* * *

9:16 pm

* * *

Yoko searched through one of the drawers in Iron's office, desperately seeking the card key.

The room had been locked but not for long with Cindy and David in tow. Cindy was quite a lock pick, surprisingly. She quipped, "You hang with Jill Valentine. You pick up some things."

Curious, their faces brought her to explain a little more, "Jill is like a MASTER of unlocking man."

Either way, Cindy and David were the most useful "normal" people you could want with you. Ever. What she couldn't pick, he could just remove the knob with a little elbow grease and a screw driver.

They were a handy pair. Yoko felt a little inadequate with them.

Iron's office was a little freaky. It was taxidermists playground of grossness.

He was obviously into stuffing animals and hunting. Some of them HAD to be endangered species and illegal as all hell to hunt. But Irons had never been much for rules. He was a bastard to the best of people, a well known lecherous perv, and a pig.

He was also holding the answers to their escape somewhere in his ugly ass office.

An ugly mounted animal looked down at her while she searched, seemingly taunting them with failure.

There was dried blood on the floor by the desk. It was still red and mostly hadn't coagulated which meant it hadn't been dry for very long. Someone should have been lying in the blood, but it was just a big smear. As if...what? As if someone had dragged a corpse...through the bookshelf? The trail just abruptly ended there.

It was weird. Too weird. And weird in this place probably meant trouble. So they were hurrying. Because whatever had made that smear? They did _not_ want to meet it.

Cindy was searching the bookcases, David along the walls, over the paintings; anywhere someone might hide something.

"There's got to be a secret safe in here or something." Cindy said in exasperation. "The guy was loony. We all knew it. He'd relish the thought of hiding shit."

Yoko closed the drawer and felt around under it, searching for anything. A button, a lever, a trigger…

There was a loud grinding noise as her finger brushed over a button. Bingo.

Behind her the bookcase slid aside and a door looked back at them.

David patted her on the back. "Awesome."

Was it? Something bloody had gone that way. Yoko queried, "...is it cowardly to _not_ want to go in there?"

David smirked, "You kidding? Anyone feeling brave?"

With no answer from the women, he figured it was his time to step up and be brave. He didn't want to...but what the hell? Every dog had its day.

He reached for the handle and the room started to shake. Yoko grabbed David for support as there was a loud explosion, the sound of metal tearing, of a wall caving in nearby.

Cindy waited a long moment until the room was still again and the sound was reduced to a crackle of fire.

She opened the door back into the hallway slowly and grimaced as smoke billowed around her face. Coughing, she tried to see what had happened.

A helicopter had smashed into the hallway from the roof. The entire left side of the hallway was obliterated, a smoldering mass of stone and billowing metal.

She stared for a moment, thinking that a few feet over and they'd have been obliterated with it.

The pilot was dead, big time, his face a roasted, melting ruin.

She closed the door again and turned to Yoko and David.

"Helicopter. Pilots dead, walls gone." She wondered when things had failed to surprise her.

Yoko nodded, face blank and David mimicked her.

Cindy figured they were all getting pretty jaded by this point.

"So we won't be going back that way. Anyone up to try this new doorway?"

David stepped forward and opened the door. "If I don't like it, can I pick another door?"

Cindy smirked. "You can go back through the one into the smoky hallway."

He looked vaguely put out. "What a fucking mess we're in."

Yoko couldn't stop the laugh. "No shit." She poked her head into the dark, "David?"

He pursed his lips and gestured, "Ladies first?"

Chivalry - sometimes it meant letting a girl go into danger first. Equality at its best. Cindy shoved them both aside and rolled her eyes, "Cowards. Let me."

A tiger waited just beyond the wall. It was a Bengal one, huge, and stuffed to resemble itself in full run mode. Disgusted, Cindy passed by it and looked up at the bald eagle and the snow owl that dangled grotesquely from the ceiling. The bastard. It was one thing to kill for food, but to kill beautiful, rare, and endangered species for sport?

She murmured, "Soulless bastard."

It wasn't even the weirdest thing in his office. Nope. There was a cage waiting at the end of the hallway. A cage. Inside, a box sat to one side beyond a locked door. And a keycard dangled from a hook against the far wall.

Cindy grabbed the bars and shook them, uselessly. She mused, "I'm guessing the key to this creepfest is going to be on Iron's himself."

Yoko reached a slender arm through, and her fingers just came up short to reach the dangling card.

She sighed, dramatically, "So, what? Do we go back and wait for the other's?"

David inspected the lock on the cell, "No way to pick this bastard. Unless we get lucky and find Jill Valentine somewhere in this station."

Cindy laughed, shaking her head, "They drove the S.T.A.R.S. out of here like Frankenstein before it all went down. Discredited. Acting like they were crazy for what they kept trying to tell the town about. We should have listened."

Yoko opened her mouth and something dripped from above them. It dripped twice, three times, and a fourth - splatting on the ground with a wet plop.

Like a slow motion horror moment in a movie, they all glanced up.

It wasn't a stuffed animal on the ceiling looking down at them, it was a monster. It was an inside out man with brains exposed and a tongue as long as a man. It had no eyes, but it didn't need them.

It could _smell_ them.

Cindy didn't even get the chance to scream as it whipped that tongue at her. Yoko dove down. David swung his makeshift spear, and it looped that tongue twice around her neck.

She jerked, she screamed, gagging as she dangled.

David shouted, "YOKO! The gun!"

Right. The gun. She had a gun. She grabbed for the weapon tucked into the back of her pants and rolled to her butt on the floor. She aimed and fired. The bullet thunked uselessly into its exposed muscular body. It looked like wet naked tissue and smelled like nothing.

How could it smell like nothing!?

There was the vague suggestion of sulfur in the air. From what? The missing skeleton? Where were the BONES!?

The thing tossed Cindy. It just threw her away like she weighed nothing. She was flung hard down the hallway and hit the tiger, taking it with her as they flipped over and smashed into the wall.

And then the thing came for Yoko.

She squealed. She scrambled. David shouted again, "Yoko! THROW ME THE GUN!"

She did. She threw it. She just chucked it and ran. She hit the edge of the cage, screamed, and dropped. The thing hit the cage above her as it leaped, missed taking her head with enormous claws the length of her legs, and smashed into the bars where she'd been standing.

The good news? It took the door with it and broke into the cage for them.

The bad? It got up easily enough to come right for her.

David shouted, "Yoko! KICK IT!"

She did. She rolled to her back, the thing leaped atop her as it screeched, and she kicked it hard in the belly. It tossed it up a little, it's claws cut her arms to twice as she defended her face, and the gun went off twice more.

Plop. Plop. Stink. There was the stink. Rotten eggs.

Brain matter splattered all over her arms. She squealed and scrambled out from under it. It twitched. It shrieked, it flipped over, and it died - grunting and jerking like a spastic fly.

Bleeding, gasping, Yoko huddled in the corner while David kicked it to be sure it was dead.

There was a clatter of sound from where Cindy was rising, gasping, tripping on the flipped over tiger. She paused, picking up a blue eye that had fallen from the beast. It was a gem. A gem for an eye?

She held it, curious, and finally remarked, "Fuck...this fucking...city."

Her voice was hoarse. Her throat was bruised and swollen. Yoko was soaked in blood and trying to stop it by wrapping her weeping arms with a towel from her pack.

David grabbed the card key from the cage and shook his head, "I'm a plumber...I'm a plumber. This is ridiculous."

Yoko shook her head, tearing up a little, "Plumber or not...you're a hero now."

Raccoon City: making heroes out of everyday people - one dead monster at a time.

* * *

9:18 pm

* * *

The trip across the parking garage went a little smoother for the Claire's trio. The garage was mostly a mess. There were cars and lights flashing and it looked like someone had made a stand at one point - because bodies were piled high in one corner and still smoking. Someone had shifted the dead and burned them, attempting, no doubt, to make sure they didn't rise again.

It was a mountain of man made misery. It was bodies curled and twirled around each other in some kind of homage to the impossible truth that faced them. They could keep on climbing. They could try all they wanted...but they were still dead where they stood. All roads, in this nightmare, ended in a mountain of burning defeat.

Even if they survived, what would they lose in this city? Already, their sanity was lost in the pile of putrefying rot, coiled in the unforgettable stink it was making; a chorus in the song of bones and smoke that chased the loss of hope into the night.

If, when the smoke cleared, she was all alone...was it even worth fighting for?

Claire shook her head, looking at the horror of it. The gate exiting the garage was down and holding. Only a few walkers lingered outside the metal, milling around and moaning uselessly. They were quiet, not bringing any extra attention as they moved.

She opened her mouth to make a remark about the smell of roasting flesh when she saw movement out of the corner of her eye. A flash of blonde and blue. A kid?

A kid. She was peaking at them around a truck, caught Claire looking, and ducked back to run. Claire heard her footsteps retreating and called, "HEY! Hey wait! Wait! It's ok!"

Too late. She was gone. They heard a door open and close, and silence.

Kevin sounded impressed when he intoned, "Jesus. That was a little kid man. How'd she survive this long?"

Claire shook her head, "I don't know. But we need to find her."

Sadly for them, where the little girl had escaped cleanly, they were now blocked by a massive collision. A truck and a cruiser had been sandwiched together face to face with their grills crunched up on each other in the dark to create a barricade, probably to whomever had escaped through the door beyond. They needed those vehicles moved to even consider getting through.

Claire shifted into the truck cabin and stuck it in neutral. Kevin pushed with Mark and the truck actually started to move. It was a rusty bucket of crap in its previous existence. She wondered if it had ever even ran. It was orange and reminded her of an old farmers truck from a bygone era.

It rolled with a crunch of releasing metal and a tinkle of breaking headlights.

With a lot of grunting, a few curses, they got it to slide forward enough to reach the door. Some poor slob had obviously thought they were protecting themselves by closing the area off. Claire wondered if it had worked. Was anyone alive in there?

Kevin, sweating, said, "Okay through here is the cells. We should be able to get through into the sewer. According to Yoko, they will lead us to back to the street or down to this subway station."

They'd capped a few unfortunate zombies on their way to the basement. Putting a hole through his friend's heads hadn't served to brighten Kevin's day any.

"Won't we need the card key?"

"I don't know but we're going to find out."

He pushed open the door, sweeping wide with his gun but there was nothing on the other side of the door but the dank hallway that led to the cells. It smelled wet, moldy, and unused. There was a missing floor grate beside her that tingled her Spidey Senses about where the little girl had gone.

They moved slowly down the hallway until they heard someone yelling, loudly.

"Oh GOD! Get it off me! Please get it off me!" The voice was male. Older. It wasn't the little girl they'd seen.

They started running.

Terror beat like a second heart in Claire's chest. It was Leon. It was Leon.

They came around a corner to find a man writhing on the floor of a locked cell, batting furiously at his chest and screaming.

It wasn't Leon.

For some reason, the relief she felt was so tremendous that she nearly swayed on her feet. What was worse? She had a moment of utter blankness that followed. She simply didn't know what to do.

Because the obvious torture that man was in was vocal. It was complete. He clawed like Hulk at his shirt and skin. He ran himself into the bars of his cage. He might have been handsome once, before it all happened, with a ponytail and sloppy shirt over brown slacks. He had a long nose and a pretty pair of angry blue eyes.

But he was possessed or something. He was shrieking and begging. He was grunting and pushing like a pregnant woman trying to give birth. He squatted like he'd shit in his cage or something and squealed.

Kevin whispered, "...what the fuck..."

Claire rushed forward.

The man stopped writhing all of sudden and looked at her, very solidly. His hand shot out of the bars. He grabbed her ankle and jerked. It spilled her forward and she kicked at him, "Let go!"

"Umbrella knew. They knew. Tell everyone. Chief Irons knew. I needed proof. Stop them." He grabbed her hand through the bars and she let him. "Please tell everyone."

He grabbed for his pocket and missed. He shrieked and humped his hips up. His back bowed, bowed, bowed - and bent. It bent in half. It cracked loud and painfully. Mark turned away and gagged. He doubled over until his shoulders rested on his own ass.

He was still screaming. His hands clawed and jerked. His body spasmed and kicked. His bones popped, his spine jutting with a slurp and ripping sound like cloth tearing as it burst from his skin as his body straightened back out. His ribs severed his flesh, popping, popping, cracking, breaking, bursting.

Claire could smell the moment he pissed and shit himself. He folded up on himself like an accordion with a great chorus of wet bone breaking. He grunted, he screamed, he popped, he wailed. His body spastically jerked like he was mainlining lightning.

His hand grabbed for something, anything, to hold on to. Claire grabbed it back, offering anything to comfort him.

He gurgled once like he was using mouth wash. Claire let go of his hand a moment before he screamed again and started vomiting blood.

Horrified, she stood; backed away.

Blood splattered around him and he clawed at himself, still screaming. His mouth vomited blood in a geyser, soaking the ceiling, slicking the floor. He looked like the _Exorcist_ or something. They needed a mirror and John Constantine to save him.

But it was too late for that.

He wept, "I don't want to die."

It was so pitiful. It was so awful.

He screamed, "I don't want to die!"

His neck cracked, his voice ended on a whine, his eyes bulged and his face swelled. They spilled from his sockets to flop on his cheeks and still...still...he screamed. His tongue choked him as he vomited blood again. His hands finally peeled back a layer of his skin and it soaked his belly in red.

He called once for his mommy. He begged for mercy. He put his hand out to her again.

Claire whispered, "...help him."

Kevin lifted the gun, ready to shoot him, put him out of his misery. They all had a moment of realizing they should have done it long before then. But they'd been frozen in fear.

The man went still, impossibly still. His eyes were empty, dead.

The three of them stood around the cell a moment, staring, unable to comprehend what had happened.

Mark whispered, "Umbrella…" _Our business is life itself._

And death?

Umbrella had built the city. They were the biggest contributors. It didn't make any sense.

But nothing made sense anymore. It was time to start putting together the pieces to make this puzzle fit. She was so afraid. She didn't want to move. She just wanted to stand there and let someone else do it.

She wanted her brother. She wanted her dorm. She wanted to be anywhere but Raccoon City. She didn't want to die screaming and shitting herself. She wanted to run and never look back.

But she just kept staring at the mess that had once been a man.


	17. Burning Down the House

**Raccoon City**

* * *

 **Raccoon City, Pennsylvania**

 **September 27, 2018 –**

 **Burning Down the House**

* * *

Leon came to staring at an ugly crow.

It was just dangling there, taunting him. It was stuffed and stupid looking. It was dangling from the ceiling above a desk across from the chair where he was propped up.

He shifted, smelling the scent of a fireplace, and the dull light of the room gave him back some images.

A library, or a study of some kind, where one door was barred with a dresser shoved against it and the other was barred with a chair. The floor was littered with little potted plants. Some were pretty and green, others were red and blue. He shifted and his ribs protested, but not the way they should. Not even close.

He lifted his shirt and saw the scars first. Lots of them. Little and big ones, peppered over his trunk and his chest, like a patchwork quilt on his flesh. He should be dead. It was never more clear than in this moment - the damage he'd survived in that street...he should be dead. Or undead at the very least.

But he wasn't. He was scarred but alive. Why?

A voice said, quietly, "So, Bogart,...I like the hot P.I. in a 40's noir movie thing you're going with here. But the bloody shirt might ruin it a little. You want a fresh one?"

He turned his head to find a woman watching him where she sat on the far side of the room with a bowl in her lap, mixing something. She was pretty, even in the firelight, and familiar. She wore a leather jacket over a crisp white collared shirt. As she shifted, he could see the shoulder holster she wore peeping out beneath the jacket. Her short cap of hair shagged cutely around her chin, unkempt but still lovely, highlighting her big blue eyes.

That was the kicker about her. It was the eyes. Nearly white blue, they struck and lodged, making you stare. She tilted her head, "You retarded or something?"

She was also, apparently, a bit of a bitch.

Leon laughed, and it hurt, so he shook his head instead, "Not that I'm aware. Though I should be dead. Who are you?"

"Valentine." She shrugged, "Jill. You?"

"Kennedy," His response made her laugh, "Leon. Rookie. This is my first day."

Her mouth twitched, "Oh? A good one then?"

"The best. Jolly. A gay affair full of confetti made from human flesh and rotting rewards. I'm thinking of asking for a raise."

Her eyes twinkled, "Ah. Maybe you should consider a reassignment."

"Potentially," He shifted, "You saved me."

Not a question. So she answered just as simply. "I did. You made it this far. Figured you must be worth saving." She gestured with her hands, "Those plants you see? Turns out they're incredible. They can do almost anything."

He shifted up, winced, and queried, "Yeah?"

"You bet. Herbal remedies were around a long time before western medicine." She smiled when he looked interested, "As if you care."

Leon stood, swayed, and gathered himself. He remarked, "You know...I actually am. We need all the help we can get right now."

Jill set down the bowl in her hands and rose. She moved through the firelight to point at each pot and give it a name. "Agrimony, Andiroba, Comfrey, Calendula, Avocado, Marshmallow, Aloe Vera, Witch Hazel, Chamomile, Bergamot, Echinacea, Goldenseal, Wormwood, Oregon Grape, Juniper and St. John's Wort are very effective cures for cuts and wounds."

He gestured, "What's the blue one?"

"Hyssop. Helps with infection."

He glanced at her face. "Such as?"

"I got stung by something out there. Something ugly. One of those bugs. I should have died. But I mixed the hyssop with witch hazel and wormwood...it drew the infection out and sealed the wound." She shrugged, "Red, blue, and green...mix them up and take your chances. So far, they haven't failed me."

"You healed me with just plants?" He sounded so doubtful. Jill shrugged.

"That...and hemostatic medicine." She winked and tossed him a few packets of the hemostat on the desk. "Western and Eastern medicine unite."

Leon laughed and shook his head. "You got that clean shirt?"

She handed it to him. It was easy enough to change. She inspected his wounds while he shed the bloody one, touching a few on his side gingerly, "Soreness?"

He watched her face in the firelight as he buttoned up his shirt. "Nope. Great."

"Sorry about the scarring. But at least you're alive."

He shrugged, "Fuck it. Chics dig scars."

She laughed, shaking her head, "Rookie...a helluva day to start being a cop."

"You ain't lyin." He tilted his head, "Have we met? I feel like I've seen you before."

She paused. They both stared for a moment. It was Jill who spoke first, "Oh god! Claire!"

He wracked his brains and found the memory. She was the woman outside. She was the woman who got the machine gun man to chase her so they could run. She was-

"S.T.A.R.S." He actually gripped her arm in surprise, "You know Chris Redfield? We're here to find him."

Jill opened her mouth to answer and the room shook like an Earthquake. She went forward, stumbling into him. He caught her against his chest and they ended up sprawled across the chair. The smell of smoke filled the air, seeping under the door.

Something close by was toast. The level of noise suggested it was structural. Something had hit the building or burst inside it. There was no getting around that.

From a few inches away, Jill glanced up at him. "Where is Claire?"

He shook his head. "I don't know. Chris?"

"That's the thing...he shouldn't be here. I left him at the town limits. He was gone. He was headed to New York to try to stop Umbrella."

He let go of her. She helped him up from the chair. He looped his shoulder holster back over the crisp shirt and the vest. "Claire thinks he's here. She won't leave until we find him."

Jill studied him, curious. He was young. Really young. But honestly? She just felt really old. That's what survival did to you. It aged you prematurely.

So she said, quietly, "Ok then, Bogie, it looks like we're about to partner up...so we stick together and find them both."

She gestured to the window above the desk. "Ready?"

Would he ever be? The answer was an easy no. But it didn't stop them from going out that narrow window into the rain. It spilled them onto a fire escape, and Jill led the charge up the clanging metal stairs toward the roof.

They could both smell the smoke out here. They could see the damage in the curling wisps of fire that sizzled and spread against the humid sky. Someone had lost control of a chopper and put it into the side of the RPD.

Jill gripped his arm as he slipped in the rain and clanged against the cage that surrounded the fire escape. It disturbed a murder of crows and they cawed angrily, taking flight into the stormy night. They attempted to dive bomb them as they went, pecking the heavy wrought iron with angry beaks.

Apparently, even the nasty little carrion eating birds were infected.

Jill pushed open a door at the top of the stairwell and they were on the roof in the driving rain. She didn't pause. She crossed the slick stone with him close behind her. The swirling storm was heavier up here, the air thinner, the world a little shimmery.

Down below, someone was screaming. The moment he realized it was the pilot of the chopper, he froze. The pilot was somehow still alive.

He started to turn back and inspect the tail of the chopper that poked up toward them, but Jill grabbed his arm, shaking her head, "He'll be dead soon enough."

A horrible truth. A painful one.

But it didn't stop him from picturing the man writing in agony and burning alive. He was weeping as he screamed. He was begging. He was shouting, "God! PLEASE DON'T FORSAKE ME!"

Like Jesus or something. Like Jesus on the cross.

They were going to let him die for their sins.

Leon looked over the roof. He had to look. It was wore than his imagination. Because the pilot had pulled off his helmet. He was clawing at his restraints, but it didn't matter. The fire had pinned him, the wall had pinned him, the collapsed burning twisted metal had pinned him. He was spitted in his chopper, in the wall, like a moth on a flaming pin.

His face was melting like candle wax. He stuck his arm up, his eyes were so white in the blackened, withering mess of his skin. He screamed, "ANNA!"

And he had something in his hand. Something glittering and silver.

Something...Leon reached for it, and the fire consumed the man in a burp of blaze. It licked up the roof. Jill jerked him back just in time. The smell of roasting hair and fuel hurt the nostrils and the mouth.

But he didn't die. He just...kept screaming that name. Anna. Anna. Anna.

Leon covered his ears for a moment, backing up. He shook his head and Jill tugged on him, looking determined but sympathetic, "Come on, Bogie. Don't quit on me!"

The crows would come if they didn't move now. They both knew it.

And the pilot was dead soon enough. She was right about that. He should shoot him and put him out of his misery.

But they needed him to scream. They needed him to keep the crows off them.

They left him wailing in agony and drawing the crows. It was so wrong. It was the only thing they could do.

She cut across the roof to a small maintenance cage that waited. It was unlocked and she ducked inside, clicking buttons on a small machine inside. He followed her, tossing his hair to get it out of his face.

Above the din of the rain, she called, quietly, "We have to shut off the damn gas to the building. If we don't, that chopper will ignite and burn the whole fucking building down!"

Right. That made sense.

He turned toward the small valve on the wall. It was attached to a pipe with an emergency sign strapped on it. The pipe itself was screaming red. To him? That said turn now.

So he did.

Jill clicked a few more keys and there was a spark and pop, a hum and a buzz, and she'd somehow rerouted power to the roof where they stood. In a handful of seconds, the world lit bright as daylight.

Spotlights flipped on, shining down on them like pinpoints to bad guys to come and get them.

But she called, "Just in case any other choppers are out there! They'll know they can LAND and FIND US."

Of course. Because she'd painted, in red on the rooftop: ALIVE INSIDE. S.O.S.

Impressed, he said nothing as she ran across the roof with him behind her again. The crows were still ripping and feasting on the dying pilot. He was quiet now, having finally succumbed to the fire.

Jill raced to the far side of the roof with him behind her. She kicked in the door there and cleared into the staircase. He closed it quietly behind them as they found themselves back in the station.

The silence nearly hurt.

He leaned on the wall and grabbed a breath.

Jill touched his arm, "You ok? You need a minute?"

He scooped his hair back, and it almost looked short lying on his scalp and slick with water. He shook his head. He couldn't find the words. He almost threw up thinking about what they'd done.

They'd left that man to die, tortured to death, so they could escape.

He'd let Elza die to save himself.

He was a cop.

He was a shitty one.

Jill gripped his vest in both hands. "I know what you're thinking."

"You can't. You can't possibly."

She nodded, "I can. It never, ever gets easier. But he was gone. If we'd shot him, he'd have gotten us killed too. He was gone, Leon. At least helping us? He didn't die in vain."

Leon tugged free of her, angry with the logic. Angry that she was right.

"I'm going to find Anna for him."

Jill gave him a sympathetic look. She shook her head, "Not if you die. Stay alive, and find her."

He shook his head, flashing with stifled rage. "If I can't save anyone...what's the point? If I'm all alone at the end of this, Jill, is it really worth it?"

Somewhere, Claire was having the same crisis of conscience. Jill had had hers, in a mansion in the dark, on a night when she'd stopped being a girl in a beret, and started being a survivor.

She clutched his tie, dragging him forward. "Help me. Help me take down Umbrella. Do that. And make it all worth it, Leon. Help me. That's all you can do."

He nodded, gripping her arm above the wrist. "Umbrella?"

Her eyes flickered. She gripped his arm with her other hand. "Yeah. Come with me. Right now. I have to show you."

"Show me what?"

"...the truth."

He held her gaze in the narrow stairwell. The smell of smoke and stench still permeating, making them both feel soaked and sick. She had a smear of something black on her cheek.

His nose dripped water down the cleft of his chin.

He drew strength from her determination and nodded. "Lead the way."

It wasn't usually his style - but sometimes he made an exception to follow a lady.

* * *

In Raccoon City, dead never really meant dead.

In this case, it meant dead with extras.

The man's body jerked and Kevin's gun sounded instantly, a shot smacking into the man's stomach. It had been reflexive to fire; habit brought on by being startled. The man kept jerking, the body bouncing like it was conducting electricity and then something happened, something popped, bone breaking.

Something tore it's way free out of the man's chest. Like a scene out of _Alien._ Like a nightmare where you fall asleep and something lays eggs inside your open mouth.

It was every bad movie you've ever seen. It was every B-script ever written. But it was worse. It was worse. Because it was _real._

Mark raised his gun in horror. Claire was backed against the wall, too frozen with fear and surprise to raise hers. At the end of the day, we all hesitate when the moment of real fear grips us. Sometimes, we run. Sometimes, we freeze. Sometimes, we rise.

In that moment, they did all three. Claire tried to run. Mark froze. And Kevin missed his shot.

Human reaction. Human response.

Kevin's shot queered the body of the dead man and made it jump. Blood bloomed in a spray against the wall, and the thing inside him was finally in the light...looking at them.

It was little, no bigger than a kitten and an ugly, slimy pink. It looked like a mutant tad pole with beady little eyes and a mouth filled with dripping fangs. It hissed loudly at them and Kevin fired again with Mark echoing him. Claire's shot was last. It clipped the side of the tadpole and threw blood in an arc. The thing screamed. It wailed like a banshee. It made them all cower and wince because it echoed.

But the thing was quick and slithered away, up the wall, out the window of the cell. It made sounds like a screeching squeal as it went, high, as if it were scraping metal nails on a chalkboard. Claire covered her ears.

They stood for a moment after it was gone, staring, frozen.

Then Mark let out a breath and they all did.

Claire was surprised to find her chest hurt from not breathing.

Kevin said, "What was he talking about?"

"I don't know." Claire whispered, desperately afraid she did. "Something about Umbrella knowing and Chief Irons knowing."

She tried to see the little badge in the corner of the cell. It was smeared in blood, but it looked like the man was Bertolucci. He was a well known whistleblower. A conspiracy theorist with his own popular YouTube channel. He was well known in certain circles of the community for blowing the lid off of controversial agendas, especially political ones.

But whatever he'd really known? It had died with him.

Unless the phone sticking out of his bloody chest pocket had information on it. They needed in that cell.

"Umbrella," Mark was shaking his head. "Knowing what?"

"About what's happening around here maybe." Kevin moved to the opposite cell, knelt by the manhole. Seeing as it was the only other way down, it had to be the way to the subway. Right? Kevin shrugged, "It's just fucked up enough to make sense. They knew about the murders, about what was going on here. Now they're blocking us in while they have time to clean up the mess."

"You think they caused it?" Claire sounded as horrified as she felt. She tugged on Bertolucci's boot, trying to bring his body closer to the bars so she could get his phone.

"Probably or they'd have jumped in here as fast as rabbits to save us all." He shook his head. "Mark, find a crow bar. I can't lift it up."

They took turns lifting, pushing and pulling until the rusty cover came off.

Claire grasped the phone and tugged it free - but it was FaceID protected. She angled it at Bertolucci's dead face and watched it register. Apple - not prepared to safeguard against death apparently.

The manhole cover slid it to one side and Kevin peered down into the dark.

Claire fired up the first video and found Bertolucci doing a little "Blair Witch" style face time. He said, "I've been in this cell for two days. The gun fire has stopped. The fight is over. I don't know who won. I locked myself in. Why? Because this is the safest place in the damn RPD. Nothing can get in here. Nothing...it's so quiet. The infection..it spread so fast. I don't know how it started. I'm afraid it's the water. I have bottled with me. I stole cans from the cafeteria while everyone else was fighting. I stockpiled down here. Maybe it's cowardly. But who the fuck cares? I'm still alive."

The camera turned to show his stockpile. It was greatly depleted from what Claire saw as she glanced over.

"I'm good for at least a week. I'll shit in the fucking cell if I have to, too. I don't care. God help Umbrella when I'm free. God help them. If something happens...check the registers in the Chief's office. That fucker...he's been white washing the books for years. A forensic accountant would have a field day if they went through the funds for this place. Umbrella is so goddamn dirty. The S.T.A.R.S...they tried to blow the whistle and no one listened. We're all listening now. I've uploaded what I can to my site. Maybe it'll get there. The service here is crap. The Wi-Fi went down about eighteen hours ago. Check it, if you're watching this? Check the site. . Read it. Rock your world. Open your fucking eyes." He shifted, rubbing his chest, "I think I'm getting a cold. I woke up a few hours ago with some chest pain and a cough. God help me if I get sick down in this dump."

The video cut off. Claire pocketed the phone.

Kevin tilted his head, "Alright. So...big time conspiracy right?"

Mark sighed, "Looks that way. We're all fucked, right? That's what he meant."

Claire shrugged, "It doesn't matter now. We need to get out of here. That's our first priority. My brother..." She nearly choked up, but pressed onward, "My brother had the answers. He's still alive. He'll know what to do."

Kevin stared at her for a moment, and finally nodded. He knew arguing against Chris being alive was a bad idea. She needed the hope. It was all that was keeping her going at this point.

"Should we go down into the dark through this manhole? That's perfectly wise...in this infected station with secret subways and puzzles...while the undead wander around and monster's with machine gun arms try to blow us up."

Mark and Claire both tried not to laugh. They did. But it was stupid you had to. Stupid, scary, and _real._ What kind of nightmare was this?

Kevin finally shrugged, "Well…here goes nothing." And he started to climb down the ladder.

There was a sound from the hallway, a door opening, closing.

He froze with one foot on the top rung.

Mark slid against the wall, gun raised. Claire moved away from the man hole and backed farther down toward where the dead man lay. She lifted her gun. They were ready.

For what?

There were foot steps coming toward them, slow and than faster, running.

Whoever it was? They were about to get a rude awakening if they didn't identify themselves.

With a cacophonous roar, the world shook. The walls shook. The ground shook. Somewhere, something had exploded.

And something exploded out of the dark hallway toward them, howling for their blood.

With little choice, Kevin dropped down the ladder. The dog missed his head by a breath as it dove at him. Claire shot twice, but the bullets thunked into the meat of it and just made it mad. It bounded against the wall and rushed her.

Mark stepped in the way and knocked it aside by swinging the bag of fertilizer he'd picked up from the ground. Beside the manhole, a shelf of supplies was waiting with watering cans and dog food. The fertilizer was an easy find.

It smashed into the dog and tossed it into the kennels with a clatter of metal and yelp of pain.

Claire shot it again as it kicked its leg, nearly point blank, right in its rolling eye.

The silence was loud.

At the bottom of the ladder, Kevin called, "You ok!?"

Mark returned, "Yeah. We're good."

"Good. The bad news is, I can't get back up. The ladder is broken halfway down. But I might be able to find another way through!"

Claire hesitated and finally said, "Mark...go down with him. I'll get the rest of the team and double back."'

Mark looked concerned with the idea, but Claire said, "Come on. He can't be down there alone. God knows what he'll find. Everyone else is waiting right upstairs. I'll be careful. I promise."

Finally, Mark nodded and started down the ladder, "But come right back."

"I will." She lifted her fingers up, "Scouts honor."

But first, she was going to look for that little girl. He started down and she turned back to the garage, hurrying forward. She emerged into the stinking air, gagging a little. She barely had the door open when she saw she wasn't alone.

The little girl was just there. She was right there. She was on her knees like someone had knocked her down. Claire inquired, "Hey! Hey hey! You ok?"

She saw Claire, she screamed, "NO! DON'T!" and the shovel struck Claire in the face.

She went onto her back; gone.

Above her still body, Brian Irons trembled. He touched a hand to the side of her breast in the white shirt she wore. He touched a kiss to her bloody face, smearing his nose against her mouth. He shuddered and he whispered, "...Alisha...you came back for me."

The sound of his weeping was lost in the crackling blaze of the bodies on fire.


	18. Nemesis

**Raccoon City**

* * *

 **Raccoon City, Pennsylvania**

 **September 27, 2018 –**

 **Nemesis**

* * *

What woke her wasn't the crying. The crying started a long time before her eyes dared to open. No. What woke Claire Redfield wasn't the crying of the little girl she'd seen in the garage.

It was the hand on her breast.

She jerked, shouting through her battered mouth, "HANDS OFF!"

It hurt her to shout. Her mouth protested the action. She rolled her lips to determine if they were blocking broken teeth, but it felt like her teeth had survived a shovel to the face. She was just swollen and bleeding.

Claire shifted to determine her situation. Her hands were bound behind her back. Her chest was jutting forward obscenely and the shirt she wore was opened, the buttons torn away. Her bra was intact, thank god for small favors, but it didn't stop that hand from touching her breast again. Claire snarled and spit, trying to get her eyes to focus in the dark.

A flickering light above the garage entrance told her she was right where she'd gone down. He hadn't even moved her before he started to assault her. But why would he? He had no clue she wasn't alone.

The wavering voice commanded her, "Be STILL! Alisha! Be still! I'm trying to find the clasp..."

Jesus. The fucking pervert. The little girl was _right there!_ Was he going to rape her while the little girl watched!?

Claire spat, again, "I'll kill you if you touch me again! Do you hear me? I will make you a woman!"

The hands circling toward her back to search for her bra clasp froze. "...Alisha? Why would you say things like this? I found you! I saved you! You CAME BACK TO ME!"

Who the _hell_ was this psycho!?

To teach her a lesson, he jerked on the shirt she wore and tore it down her arms. So there she was: bleeding, bound, and being molested in the garage of the RPD station because she'd tried to find her brother and walked into a nightmare.

Worse yet? The man in question finally came into view.

And Claire gasped, "Chief Irons!?"

He caught her chin to turn her face up to him and made a _tsk-tsk_ sound. "Look what you've done, Alisha. Look. You did this to yourself."

Jesus. He was insane. The city falling had eroded whatever fragile grip on his sanity he'd had prior to its utter destruction. There was nothing she could reason with in his piggy looking face.

But there was some kind of reverence on him that made her blood cold. He responded, with awe, "You're so strong now, Alisha. I made you strong. Do you understand? I made you strong this time."

The little girl shifted and Claire caught the movement out of the corner of her eye. She was easing toward the shovel. If she could just keep Irons talking, Claire thought they might have a chance here. The little girl could take him out with the shovel.

And then he rubbed the barrel of the gun in his hand against her breast.

Claire shuddered, hating him. It was her fucking gun he was holding.

The bastard.

"Do you see how you fight, Alisha? You fight me, because you know I value your strength. It will keep us both alive." He gestured with his head, "Sherry, she's the ticket. She's the key. I need her, to find William, to escape this city. I will take you with us. We will escape and be a family. You will be a wonderful mother."

His hand shifted to her belly, rubbing, "I will give you lots of children."

Claire nearly gagged, but she cooed, "Oh, yes. Children. I want a dozen of them. All perfect, like you. You promise?"

Sherry, the little girl, picked up the shovel and inched forward. Irons stroked down Claire's belly toward her pants. "Yes. Oh, yes, yes. Would you like me to show you? In my office, I have everything we need to survive."

In his office?

Sherry paused, watching Claire's face for the signal. Claire cooed again, "Where in your office? In your bathroom?"

He shook his head, eyes bright, "No. My secret place. My safe place. It's..." He leaned down to kiss her and murmured against his mouth on breath that was stale and fetid, "... _beneath this city."_

Claire nodded, just a little, "We'll be safe there?"

"Oh, yes, yes...yes." His hand passed the top of her pants and slid inside, moving toward her panties. "The tiger holds the truth, Alisha. The tiger is the answer."

"Yeah?" His hand brushed her pants and she batted her lashes, "Chief?"

He kissed her mouth again, trembling, "...yes?"

"My name isn't fucking Alisha." The shovel made a metallic whoosh sound. It struck him in the back and sent him stumbling. Claire headbutted him the second he was close enough and the shovel came again, striking him in the side of the head.

He went down, grunting.

Sherry grabbed the gun and kept it on him, like she wasn't a little girl trapped in a nightmare, and grabbed the keys off his belt. She backed up toward Claire and kept the gun on the fallen police chief even as she set her free.

The cuffs snapped loose and Claire took the gun, rising from the ground.

Irons was still on his side, motionless. Sherry cuffed him, kicking his butt with her little foot as she backed off. Claire, considering things, was kind enough to drag him into the shadows and tuck him into the back of a squad car.

At least it would keep the walkers off him for a little while. Although she wasn't really inclined to save his life. He was, it seemed, utterly without conscience or common sense anymore. Was it better to just leave him for dead?

She wasn't devoid of emotion enough to leave a man like that, defenseless, laid out like a Christmas dinner to the undead. She just wasn't.

Without asking, Sherry took up ranks at her side.

They moved through the garage toward the main staircase that she'd come down, but it was blocked by a pile of burning bodies. There was no going back that way. Their only way back into the station, was through the open garage door to the right. Which meant they'd have to cut back through the infested courtyard.

Claire paused, considering things, and Sherry filled the silence. "I have a better idea."

As if she'd read her mind. She hurried toward the gate and hit the button beside it, lowering the metal down to protect the garage. Surprised, Claire lifted her brows and Sherry remarked, "Trust me. This way."

Apparently, she was trailing Newt through the infested space station in _Aliens._ Smiling, Claire shook her head, and followed the tiny girl toward the far side of the garage.

Sherry gestured, in her dirty school girl uniform, "See? Up there."

The grate covering the vent at the top of the wall was hanging limply to one side. She smiled and shrugged, "We just need something to climb up there."

Claire shook her head, laughing a little. "You're something else. Who are you?"

"I'm Sherry. Sherry Birkin. My Dad and Mom used to work here...kinda. The worked in the lab."

Claire shook her hand. "I'm Claire. Claire Redfield. My brother used to work here too."

Sherry sighed a little, "There's no cops left, Claire. There's really not too many people at all. I did see one cop, awhile ago, but he..." She trailed off and took a deep breath, "...the rest of him is in the break room upstairs."

Jesus. Claire moved to an open cruiser and put it in neutral. Sherry shifted to the back end to push it.

Claire wanted to hug her. Sweet little thing, she couldn't be more than twelve years old. She was filthy and looked hungry and tired. How long had she been trapped in this building, living in vents to survive?

Claire finished shoving the police cruiser against the wall with Sherry helping her.

They climbed up and Claire cupped her hands to boost the little girl into the ducts. She followed, glad she was in better shape than most co-eds her age. Thank GOD for Pilates.

Even still, the fit was claustrophobic the second she was in. She wiggled and moved after Sherry's rump, following her into the darkness. The little girl was swift and efficient, she knew her way through the station, no doubt about that.

It was the first time she actually felt like they just might get somewhere, together.

And then something, somewhere, started screaming her name, "SHEEEEEERRRRRYYYYYYYY!"

It was awful. It echoed. It thundered through the station and left Claire breathless. Sherry froze, shaking with her hands over her ears. In the duct, Claire managed to lay a comforting hand on her ankle and whisper, "Who the hell is that!?"

Sherry shook her head, trembling, and whispered, "...I'm pretty sure that's my Dad."

Apparently, she wasn't just surviving here; she was running for her life.

In Sherry's nightmare, her Daddy wasn't her hero...he was the thing that was trying to kill her.

* * *

 **Raccoon City Police Department (R.P.D) -LOBBY**

* * *

In the lobby, David, Yoko, and Cindy had gathered back with Jim and George.

Cindy and George sat next to each other on the floor, sharing a bag of peanuts. The nuts were stale but the conversation was good.

"So how long you been a doctor?"

George looked at her. She was pretty, soft blue eyes and blonde hair in a bouncy pony tail. Pretty girls didn't talk to him much unless he was diagnosing them with something and talking to them after surgery.

"Honestly I can't remember." He figured she was at least ten years younger than him maybe more. But her face was very open and it'd been a long time, at least since the divorce, that a woman had looked at him with such interest.

Cindy liked George. He was handsome, in an intellectual kind of way, and obviously very smart and he seemed to be enthralled with every word she spoke.

"Well it's gotta be better than being a waitress, right?" She smiled at him. "Dealing with drunks and frat boys."

"Well it's actually kind of the same. I deal with them too but I sew them up so they can go back to the bar and get hurt again."

Cindy smiled, took a peanut. She was trying to think of something clever to say when Jim yelled, "Hey guys! There's somebody trying to get in!"

They got to their feet quickly, the peanuts forgotten, and hurried to the window where Jim stood, looking out.

There was a man in the courtyard who looked both frightened and ill. He was limping across the grass toward the door. Cindy could just make out the R.P.D. badge on his chest when the man turned abruptly.

It was almost sound proof inside the station but she could hear him yelling. He started running, as best as he could, toward the doors.

She went to open the doors for him and Jim yelled, "Holy shit!"

She paused, went back to the window and screamed before she could stop herself.

The thing they'd faced before was pursuing the man across the yard.

Like it had done before, it moved as if it had all the time in the world. It meandered, as serial killers often do, and the man was weeping wildly. They'd watched it slaughter the last man it had chased.

This didn't end anyway but badly for the one it followed now.

Cindy cried, "We have to help him!"

But George and Jim were shaking their heads.

"No way!" Jim was already moving. "We have to put something in front of this door. Right now!"

George and Jim started searching for something to block the door with. Yoko stood at the window, watching the man stumble and fall.

Cindy hunkered down, just barely looking over the edge of the window. She whispered, "No STARS in here, guy. Beat it." Cindy sank down, her back sliding against the wall. She put her face on her knees and started crying.

She felt George slip his arm around her and leaned against him.

To their surprise, it was Yoko that commanded, "We have to let this guy in. We can't just let that thing kill him!"

David grabbed her hands before she could open the doors and tugged. She spilled forward against him and he carried her, struggling, away to toss her on a bench by the door. He covered her mouth with his hand and instructed in the low bear growl of his, "Sit. Shut up. Don't be brave and get us killed. Do you understand me?"

Jim was at the window now, looking out though a slat. "...brutha is dead anyway? Right? So it ain't really like being cowards here. It's...survival, yeah?"

No one answered. They knew what it was. It was cowardice. They all knew it.

But there wasn't a cop among them. There wasn't a S.T.A.R.S. There were just people, just regular people, trying to stay alive. Even if it meant letting someone else die.

Yoko made a small sound of pain as it snatched the man slapping at the door in its hand and jerked him up from the ground. He kicked. He cried. He screamed.

He kept on grunting like a pig as the tentacle burst through his chest. It whipped. It rolled in the air and threw blood. It turned back on his kicking and jerking body and stuck obscenely in his mouth. He choked, grabbing and fighting at it. It thrust another tentacle into him from behind and his back cracked audibly.

The name tag he wore read Hughes.

He wasn't S.T.A.R.S. He was just a cop. He was just a guy. A regular guy trying to survive. Like them.

And he died choking on a tentacle. His face purpled. His belly bloated grossly, as if he'd swallowed too much air. He spasmed in the grip of the thing and humped crudely. Hentai made tentacles a sexual thing...this? It made it what it was meant to be: horror and torture and death.

His belly burst like a water balloon. It exploded, splattering the door of the station in blood and pus. He screamed once more, suspended on that tentacle as if it were a hanger in the closet. It jerked out of his mouth and left the widened O of it behind in a frozen scream. It jerked out of his back and spilled him, dead and burst like ripe fruit, to the ground with a crunch and splat of sound.

And then the thing eyed the station doors. It tilted its head like it was listening.

Yoko shrunk down, finally giving in to the fear. She covered her ears and hummed quietly to herself. Jim squeaked, cowering, "...please, dude. Fuck off, ok? Not here. Go away. Just...skurt."

After a few moments of silence, Yoko shoved at David's hands, fuming.

And the thing at the door turned away, moving through the smoke toward the far side of the courtyard. Yoko rose, slapping at the plumber. "Coward!"

"Me!? Really? What about you!? Maybe I'm a coward. Maybe that's true. But you'd have gotten us all killed." David didn't even sound offended by the slander.

"Jesus Christ, what was that thing?" Jim sounded terrified and Cindy didn't blame him. She was surprised she hadn't passed out from fear.

"I don't know." George sounded a little less frightened. "But it wasn't after us."

"Thank god." Cindy whispered and felt bad because she was relieved and the other man was dead.

Jim said, "I almost pissed myself." He sat down next to them, "We need to get the fuck out of this city. Like now."

Yoko shook her head, spinning away. "...maybe we escape...but I don't know how the hell I'm gonna live with myself for what we're gonna do to get there."

Raccoon City - making cowards out of everyday folks...and proving sometimes staying alive means admitting, maybe, you're no hero after all.

* * *

 **Raccoon City R.P.D. Perimeter - Impound Parking Lot**

* * *

"Here...slide in here."

It wasn't the first time a beautiful woman had asked him to slide in somewhere. Sadly, for Leon Kennedy, it was the first time it meant entering - not the beauty of a woman's thighs and the joy of release - but the horror of the nightmare that waited beyond.

He shifted into the crack between the fencing that Jill held. Her breasts brushed his chest as he moved and their legs and groins joined the party. She glanced up at his face with a bit a smirk.

"You could have slid through backwards, hot stuff."

Right.

 _Right._

Almost embarrassed, but in it now, Leon slid the rest of the way. "...true. But let's be honest, this was alot more fun...and you just wanted to cop a feel of dat ass."

Jill shook her head, chuckling a little. He was something else. She actually enjoyed his company.

They eased down the embankment outside the impound lot. The mud was thick and the rain heavy. It washed down their skin and joined the rumble of thunder that added to the ambiance of the evening.

The way forward was blocked by a barricade made of crumpled police cars. Someone had made sure they weren't getting into the garage that way.

In the distance, a siren was blaring and the crackle of fire turned the world smokey and orange. As they ducked under the over hang and back tracked through the parkinglot, Jill informed him, "When I first decided to stay behind, Chris told me I was crazy. But I couldn't just leave, ya know? I had to make an attempt to help here."

"Makes sense." He got it. He did. Maybe better than anyone else on Earth, he got it. Isn't that why he was still here? He could have run at any time. But, damnit, he was a COP...he had to try to help people here.

Jill slipped between two narrow trees and Leon followed her, curious where she was leading.

She leaped easily onto the hood of a car, pulled herself up a fire escape and like she did pull ups every day, and stuck a hand down to help Leon. He gave her a narrow look and did the same, leveraging himself up with a rather embarrassing grunt.

She pursed her lips and mused, "Maybe you should work on building some muscle when this is over. Skinny don't stop bullets."

Seriously?

He gave her a droll look, "What does? Great gobs of muscle? Should I get as big as a brick shithouse? How do you run if you're enormous?"

She shrugged, ducking through a broken window into a small building. He followed her, glancing around at what was apparently another of her hideouts. She moved toward the wardrobe in the dirty cover adjacent to the naked mattress on the ground.

"Maybe not. But you can fight instead."

"...seriously?"

She shrugged, "Better to fight than run all the time. If you start running, when do you stop? Eventually, you have to kill it."

He watched her gather up a small bag and start putting things inside it. Drolly, Leon queried, "What...you think you can fist fight monsters?"

"Why not?" She shrugged, "If you were bigger, you could have helped shove the barricade back there. We wouldn't be going the long way around to get back into the garage."

He blinked, twice. "What...are you kidding here? You want me to go back there and what...punch the police cars? Who punches inanimate objects like that?"

She laughed and shrugged, "Heroes, probably."

"Sure." He chuckled, derisively, "The ones who make bad jokes and end up battling their great nemesis on the moon or something."

"You're halfway there anyway."

He shook his head, following her down the small hallway of the dilapidated building. He shook his head, "Me and the rest of the Marvel-verse. I'll fight walls and trucks! I'll fight mountains! I'll punch tanks and cats!"

"...why would you punch a cat? That's just mean."

"Cats are assholes. Objectively."

Jill chuckled a little, "Just stick to punching down barricades, ok?"

"Boulders too?"

Jill snorted, "Really? Who fights boulders?"

Leon shrugged, "Guys on crystal meth...and roid ragers."

"So...not you, clearly. Since you're about as skinny as Gumby."

Leon snorted, shoulder bumping her.

She winked and gestured with her head. They cleared the stairwell and moved into the crumbling lobby of the building. Jill added, softly, "I need to get to the clock tower. It's a long story on the why, but basically it's the tallest building in the city. We want a shot in hell of escape? The only chance someone is going to see us from the sky is if he set off a flare up there."

"What about another way out?"

She gave him an indulgent look, "There's no other way, Leon. The streets are done. The military has quarantined the city. The only way in or out is by air or coffin."

He paused, considering. "...what about the subway?"

She lifted her brows. She glanced at him in the dull light of the lobby of the crumbling hotel where they stood. She was actually assessing him.

"...didn't you come through he subway?"

He nodded, scanning the street beyond the filthy window. It was empty, saving for the stench of fire and death. To the right, another building was currently licking the sky with flames of desolation.

"It was infested, don't get me wrong, but that won't matter with a train in our hands. We can barrel right over that shit."

Jill tilted her head again, considering him. He glanced at her over his shoulder. "What?"

"It's a pretty fucking good back up plan, honestly. I can't believe I didn't consider it before now. I just assumed most people hid down there and the place was a mess."

He shrugged. "It is. But doesn't mean it's not operational."

She nodded, stepping up beside him. "So we try it my way first. Truthfully, I remember somebody saying there's a subway under the police station for fast travel for personnel. That may not even be over run. This fails? We head that way."

Leon nodded, studying her profile in the flickering firelight. She wasn't much older than him. She looked young and tired, and strong. He felt better being around her. Like together they had half a shot in hell of finding Claire and the rest and getting out of this nightmare.

"So we fire off the flare and then what?"

"We hope someone stops for us." Jill shrugged along with her answer.

"And then?"

"If not, we head for the station and the subway."

"What about Claire?"

"I won't let Chris down. We'll find Claire if she's here. I promise."

Leon nodded in agreement. They ducked out into the rain and started west across the street that was littered in rainbow swirls. What was it? Soap?

The second they turned down the alley, he figured out what it was. A gas tanker was over turned and dribbling it's wares all through the cobblestones. It ticked loudly in the sizzling air. The engine was like a bomb waiting to go off.

Jill hesitated but said, "Hurry past it. Don't fire that gun."

It was the wrong time to be restricted on weapons. It really, really was.

Because a famliar cry lit the air around them, joining the caw of crows on the power lines above them, and the rumble of thunder mixed with crackling fire in the distant filthy sky.

"STARZZZZZ!"

Apparently, Jill's stalker had found them.

Under her breath, she lamented, "...jesus...that thing is such a nemesis. Hot stuff?"

"Yeah?"

She patted Leon on the butt like a prize show horse. "Show me dat ass, prove that skinny is still worth a damn, and run!"

Objectified or not, Leon took off like the race horse Jill wanted him to be. What had they said? Sometimes? You just fucking ran for it. Contrary to popular belief, he was not the guy who was going to stand there and fist fight a monster.

He'd leave that to a whole other kind of hero.


	19. See Ya Later, Alligator

**Raccoon City**

* * *

 **Raccoon City, Pennsylvania**

 **September 26, 2018 –**

 **See Ya Later, Alligator**

* * *

 **Raccoon City Police Department (R.P.D) - SEWERS**

* * *

She'd never be sure how it came down to this. She'd come with Sherry. She'd ended up following a little girl through the air ducts. There was no real direct way back into the RPD. They had to go down to go up. They'd cut across a maintenance chute and dropped down into some ducts.

Claire used the card key they'd found on Irons to open the wide door.

They had just started to limp through it when they heard the growl.

It was deep, loud and too close.

Claire spun around and saw it coming.

A crocodile at least thirty feet long with a head as big as a man. It was fast as it slithered, a tail as wide as a tree smashing into the walls as it moved.

She had a moment to realize they were about to die before she yelled, "RUN!"

And they were running down a strange hallway, in some kind of twisted nightmare, where nothing good happened and it seemed certain that none of them were going to make it out alive.

They'd made it four steps before it start roaring.

She found out both she and Sherry had wings.

Terror was a great motivator.

Someone was yelling. "Kevin! George! Aim for the head!"

There was the loud booming of shot guns, the sound of the horrible monster screaming.

She wasn't alone in this damn tunnel after all.

Cindy was helping Kevin, who was wounded and in great pain, still seemed to be very lucid. What happened!? He ran with her as fast as he could. David, packing another person, was still faster than the two of them. They ran down the long hallway with Yoko and Jim.

Mark stayed with George to fire at the beast. Claire shouted, "Sherry GO WITH THEM! Do you hear me!? RUN!"

She did, no questions asked.

They reached the end of the hallway and ran left where it curved.

Yoko heard someone screaming behind them.

Yoko stopped, pulled the revolver she carried out with shaking hands. She said, "According to the schematics, that's the dump over there. Go over the bridge. It should take you into another set of hallways. Wait for me!"

She turned back to where the fighting was and started running.

Terrified, Cindy moved faster. Kevin's wound had bled through the gauze but he kept moving.

David was the first one over the bridge with Jim following behind Cindy and Kevin.

The dump smelled worse than the sewer. Cindy wasn't stupid. She figured some of what was floating in the greenish water was probably toxic. The door to at the end of the bridge was locked. They needed the card key and only Yoko had it.

Cindy ran back into the frey to get the key.

She was struck so hard by the croc that she'd start to question her bravery. It felt like being kicked by a hundred horses at once. Cindy slid along the floor, moving faster then a human could run. The croc had a tail that hit like a speeding car.

She figured at least two of her ribs were cracked, maybe broken. The pain was so bad she thought she might pass out from it.

She got to her feet and turned back to the battle.

Mark was slumped against the wall, utterly still.

George and Claire were still firing but it was like swatting at a buffalo with a fly swatter. They were outmatched. That's when she saw it, it had a flammable symbol on the side of it.

She was running toward it before the thought was fully formed in her head.

There was a red light on but a flip of a switch and the tank rolled onto the ground with a loud clang.

She was running backward, screaming, "GET AWAY FROM IT! COME TO ME! HURRY!"

Kevin was dragging Mark. Yoko and George were still firing, backing up.

Cindy thought, "They'll never get here in time." She had to get the monsters attention. She had one chance, they all did.

She ran forward, waving her arms, frantically whistling.

"Stop shooting it!"

They did, almost instantly.

It whipped its giant head toward her, snarling. She pointed, frantic, and bellowed, "CLAIRE! SHOOT THE GODDAMN GAS!"

She knew she had a minimum of seconds to make the shot and either save or doom them all.

The monster came for her, moving too fast. She backed up, nearly tripping.

Three feet, two and the cylinder slid into its giant jaws.

She prayed, prayed hard, and Claire took the shot.

* * *

There was an explosion, a burst of fire that licked out of the hallway where they'd just come. There was bits of dead crocodile like grotesque artwork all over the walls. Pieces dripped from the ceiling.

Cindy was crumbled by the entrance.

David knelt down to check on her.

She was alive, her breathing even. There was a swelling bump on her forehead that told him she'd probably been thrown backward by the explosion and hit the wall.

"David…"

He looked up to see Yoko limping toward him. She was a mess. Her face and clothes were splattered with blood and gore.

He stood and saw through the blood, Yoko was crying.

David hurried over to where she was standing.

Mark's body was twisted, swollen, his neck bent at a bad angle obviously broken.

He was half underneath the tail of the dead crocodile. David shook his head, closed Mark's eyes which seemed to stare at him accusingly.

"Rest now." He said quietly.

George yelled, "Help me!"

Yoko and David turned to see him crawling toward them, his leg broken and oozing blood. Yoko hurried to help him to his feet.

Claire was lying on the floor at the far end of the hallway.

David rushed toward her, his heart racing. But Claire was alright, just gaining consciousness.

David helped her sit up with an arm around her shoulders.

Claire's clothes were singed, her face blackened by smoke. She said through gritted teeth, "Cindy?"

"She's alright just knocked out."

"Mark?"

David looked at her face. "No. I'm sorry."

"Fuck."

David helped her to her feet.

"Where's everyone else? Sherry?"

"The little girl? She's with us. Waiting on the bridge. I came back to see who made it."

Claire started to stand on her own and David released her, reluctantly. But the cop's sister was steady after a moment. Cindy was just coming to. She let out a moan that had David hurrying back to her.

She tensed as she sat up and then saw the mess the crocodiles head had become.

David couldn't contain a smirk when she gave the dead beast the finger.

"Suck on that, you ugly mother fucker." She let David help her stand.

Yoko hugged her just once, very quickly. "You saved us."

Kevin was kneeling by Mark's body. There was such grief on his face that it hurt David to see it.

Cindy saw where he was and said, "Shit."

Kevin stood, shouldered his shot gun. He was still bleeding. Claire wanted to ask what had happened, but he looked so stoic. She said nothing as he encouraged them, "Let's go."

Yoko was struggling with George who was too big for her small frame to handle.

David went to help her.

They made their way out of the hallway and were halfway across the bridge when Cindy shouted, "George! Oh my god!"

She ran forward and dropped to her knees.

"It's okay." George was all but hissing out his words. "It's a clean break. Cindy if you could get my bag. I think I'll take some of the morphine."

Kevin came forward to help David set George on the ground.

George said, "You shouldn't aggravate your wound."

Kevin looked at him, smiling. "One good turn deserves another. Don't be a hero, doc."

Cindy came back with the morphine.

George smiled at her. "In the right upper arm, please."

Kevin moved to check on Claire. She was still dangerously pale but the bleeding had all but stopped from her head where she'd hit. He checked her pulse. It was stronger, steadier. She gave him calm eyes and said, "I'm ok. Are you?"  
He winked and said, "I'll live."

Sherry clung to Claire's side like a burr.

"You have a kid somewhere along the way?"

Claire shook her head, snorting, "Looks that way. Where is Leon?"

Kevin shook his head. No answer. Did no one know where Leon was?

Cindy ran the card key through the door.

Jim was looking between the people. "Where's Mark?"

Yoko just shook her head at him.

"Aw fuck! FUCK!" He kicked the wall. "This is bullshit man! BULLSHIT! What is happening here? What the hell is happening?"

Kevin said, "Keep it together man. We're almost out of here."

"Mark had a family man! He had kids!"

"I did the best I could." Cindy spoke quietly.

"Shit it ain't you." Jim put his face in his hands. "I don't know if I can do this man. I think I'm gonna have a fuckin breakdown."

Yoko touched his arm, gently. "Jim just hold on a little longer. It'll be over soon."

"When it's over, we can all break down together." David's voice was softer, deeper.

"Shit. I'm gonna do more than break down." Kevin looked out over the dump. "I'm gettin fuckin wasted."

"First rounds on me." Claire added softly and helped George stand.

David kept one arm around him and Cindy held up his other side.

Kevin said softly, "Claire, Cindy and Jim, you guys are the big guns now. You got our backs."

Cindy jacked a round into her shot gun. Waitress turned warrior it seemed. "Let's get the hell outta this dump."

The door buzzed, slid open.

They walked through, uncertain of what dangers they'd head into next.

* * *

 **Raccoon City Police Department (R.P.D) -SOUTH CAMPUS ADJUNCT**

* * *

She was dreaming. She had to be dreaming.

Life was never this good.

 _She said, "Kiss the baby."_

 _Leon kissed the baby. "Red hair. Beautiful red hair."_

 _She looked down at the tiny, wrinkled face. The eyes were sky blue and beautiful. She was tired, so tired but she'd brought something wonderful into the world._

 _"Beautiful baby…"_

 _But it was changing, it's eyes were black, its gums exposed. It grabbed her hair and opened its mouth. It said one word, slurred it like a drunk, "Starzzzz…."_

 _She struggled, fought, kicked…_

Her eyes opened, blurred.

She was being carried.

He smelled horrible, like rotten meat, like sewage, like death and blood.

She could make out the soft cleft in his chin.

Jill whispered, "Hey…"

He halted. "Jill? Jesus Christ...I thought you were dead. I thought..." He trailed off, pale and scared, "That thing...it just took you down."

Was that Leon's voice? It sounded like him. She was so tired.

"Am I dying?"

Her eyes traveled upward. Strong jaw, soft hair. Hot. He was super hot. Why was that relevant? Jill shifted in his arms. She was burning up. The fever was killing her.

"Not yet. Not if I can help it. What do you know about the virus, Jill? Is there a way to stop it?"

She tried to clear her head. "Fuck...I don't know. What happened?"

"You ran. I tried to stop it. But it knocked me out. When I woke up, you were on the ground. It didn't kill you...it just...stabbed you with those god damn tentacles. Right in the fucking chest. I'm so fucking sorry."

Had they made love? Why did he smell so bad? Where was she? What was he saying? She leaned up to kiss the cleft in his chin. He nearly dropped her and the face he turned down wasn't excited at all.

He looked terrified. "Focus Jill, please. Can you? Do you know anything about a cure?"

It came back to her, in waves, in glimpses. She struggled, just a little.

Running. Flirting. Who? Him? What was his name?

"Leon!?"

"I'm here. I'm right here."

He sounded so sad. He was alive.

She lifted her hand, felt him grab it.

"Leon…"

His face above hers, so pale, so dirty. Great sadness in his eyes.

"The station. The station has a lab under it. A lab. We found schematics on it during our digging. Chris was eyeball deep when he ran for it to hide the trail. The lab...it might have a cure."

It was hard to talk. She hurt, felt dizzy and sick.

"Ok. Ok. I'll get you there. I swear to god. Hold on to me."

She leaned her face against his neck. She was so hot. He smelled so bad. Why did that smell good? She licked his sweaty neck and he trembled with fear. "Don't bite me, Jill. Not yet."

"You smell good."

"I smell like shit, honey. So I think you're losing it."

Jill gripped his shirt in her hand and shuddered, "...I'm going to die."

Leon was okay. They were okay. It was okay. What was she forgetting? What was happening? She was forgetting something. Had they made it to the clock tower?

She said, "I'm so tired."

Leon gripped her tightly in his arms. "Sleep now. It's okay. I gotcha."

She squeezed Leon's hand. "Leon?"

"Yeah?" Gruffly. He sounded so gruff.

One looped around his bicep. Her other hand squeezed into his back. She wanted to say something. She'd needed to tell Leon something but she was so tired.

She whispered, "Don't be hero."

"...shit. Ok." And he sounded like he was in pain.

But she was too tired and so she slept and there was nothing but darkness.

* * *

 **Raccoon City Police Department (R.P.D) - MAIN FLOOR LAB**

* * *

Yoko was pounding away on one of the computers.

She made a sound that had them all looking at her.

"The man was brilliant. Absolutely brilliant." She looked at them. "This is going to sound crazy…" She looked at the giant tubes. "Okay maybe not that crazy. But this computer, it's full of all kind of research. On something called the G-Virus. According to this it's a superior synthesis to another virus called the T-Virus. Apparently they were conducting some kind of experiment out at the old Spencer Mansion in the forest. There was a leak…anyway it…." She tried to think of way to say everything in laymen's terms. "It turns humans into zombies and makes any other animals go crazy. It mutates them, gives them superior strength."

"Well that's obvious." Claire was searching through papers, reading. "Listen to this… _First May, William's finished! He's finally finished! Years and years of research is finally paying off! The G-Virus is a masterpiece. Umbrella has been riding him lately, threatening to cut funding to shut down the lab. All because some idiot lost control in the forest! But it doesn't matter! Nothing matters anymore because he is done! We'll take his masterpiece and sell it to the highest bidder! Soon the world will see the true beauty of William's work!_ "

Claire shook her head. "There's more…" She flipped a page. " _Those bastards!_ _Those horrible, horrible bastards! They came for the virus…they wanted to take it…and my pour beautiful William…riddled with bullets…He took the virus and destroyed them…but he's lost to me now. The virus will mutate him. My only hope is to take the last sample, show the world. I will take the lab with me and Umbrella will have nothing. I must hurry before they find and try to take his blood. For you, my love, for William Birkin."_

Kevin was shaking his head. "That man was right. Umbrella is behind this. Behind everything."

Sherry stared at the vial. She was so quiet. Claire glanced at her and couldn't tell what she was thinking.

Jim picked up the small vial in a tube. He lifted it up to the light. "This must be what she was talking about. The last remaining vial of the G-Virus."

So small, so deadly.

"What do we do with it?"

Yoko looked excited. "Jim let me see it."

He passed it to her.

"Listen there's notes here, research into an antivirus." She walked to the computer, tapped keys. "There was never a sample of the antivirus made but the numbers all add up. I think I can make it."

Kevin looked at her. What had Yoko been before tonight?

"How much time do you need?"

She looked at the notes. "Fifteen, twenty minutes."

"Okay." He considered things and said, "So we buy time until you make some anti-virals."

Yoko nodded. "We can only assume it's Birkin out there stalking us. The question is...why?"

Cindy said, "Or the thing that killed that man in front of the station."

George nodded. "It could have made those punctures in her. It had tentacles."

"Either way," Kevin stood. "We've got to stay together. Some of us are too wounded to fight anything. We know the subways not far from here. But we're going to have to take a lift to get down to it."

Jim was already agreeing. "I say we let Yoko make the anti-virus."

Claire added. "According to the crazy bitches' notes, the T-virus wasn't airborne; it was spread by the rats in the city. So we're not infected unless we were bitten."

Yoko nodded, "Still if we run into others we'll have the anti-virus. That way, no one will have to be left behind to die."

George said, "We can take the anti-virus, take the research to the Feds."

"Exactly. Besides, its likely Umbrella has fingers all over the country. We get out and try to tell our story, they're going to shut us up real quick." Kevin didn't sound happy about it.

Jim opened his mouth and they heard it. A grinding of metal, a piercing howl.

David whispered, "I don't think we have twenty minutes."

Kevin hefted the shotgun and David took George's. Claire was already reloading. Cindy dropped the notes, grabbed her gun.

"Jim stay here with George, Sherry and Yoko while she works on the anti-virus." Kevin gestured to Claire and Cindy. "It's the home stretch."

They moved toward the door.

Sherry grabbed for Claire and whispered, "Please...it's my Dad. Just let him take me and he won't hurt you."

Surprised, Claire returned, "Who's your Dad, Sherry?

And the little blonde whispered, "Birkin. My Dad is William Birkin."

Sherry's Dad was the monster.


	20. Epic Battle

**Raccoon City**

* * *

 **Raccoon City, Pennsylvania**

 **September 27, 2018 –**

 **Epic Battle**

* * *

Dad or not, the monster wouldn't stop until they were all dead. Quietly, Kevin told her, "I'm sorry, kiddo. But we can't let that stop us."

Teary eyed, Sherry whispered, "...I know. I'm so sorry."

With a nod, Kevin went through first. Why? You only died once and if it kept them alive to finish the anti-virus and escape, he was ok with dying. Hell, wasn't that why he picked up the shield every day?

There was blazing heat on the other side of the door. They were standing above a pool of molten lava on a very slim bridge.

Someone screamed.

A woman in a white coat was running toward them.

Kevin was already running toward her when he saw what she was running from.

It was human, or had once been, with a face as white as snow and dirty, burning trench coat on shoulders as broad as he was tall.

Kevin didn't stop running. The woman ducked passed him and kept going, shouting, "Don't try to fight it! You can't kill it!"

He caught sight of movement. The woman was trying to distract the monster. She had a small blonde ponytail and a white doctor jacket on.

She was waving her arms in the air and yelling. "Sherry! It wants the necklace! Throw me the necklace!"

The what?

Kevin fired at the monster who was still coming toward them, its ugly eyes intent on the little girl who waited in the office beyond, terrified.

The monster didn't stumble as the shot took it clean in the chest. It kept coming, screaming.

Claire shouted, "What necklace?!"

Claire fired and Kevin echoed her. Buckshot tore at it's stomach, at the meat of its chest and still it came, moving slowly but nimbly toward them.

The little girl was throwing something. It glittered as it spun, end over end. Sherry screamed, "Just take it! PLEASE!"

The woman on the other side of the bridge caught it, yelled. "This one! I got it right here!"

The monster turned abruptly, taking another round in its back as it lumbered toward her. Sherry cried, "Mommy! NO!"

And the blonde called back, "Keep running, Sherry. Do you hear me!? This one is the least of your troubles!"

Sherry was yelling. "Mommy! Mom!"

The woman shook her head. She backed up, leading the monster away from them, and she lifted her arm and threw the gold thing into the lava. The monster wailed, angry and started after it, tearing through the metal of the bridge as it went. It sizzled as it sunk, searching in the lava.

Claire was coming toward her, "Hey you! Hey!"

About a foot from them, the bridge shook and she went to her knees.

The monster was there again, howling.

The blonde woman looked horrified. "No…it was…in the necklace…"

Claire figured she knew what the monster wanted. "He wants the G-Virus!"

The woman was screaming. "It was in the necklace!"

"No," Kevin grabbed her arm, lifted her up. She backed up with them now. "There's a sample inside the lab."

The monster was coming toward them.

David set the little girl down, who immediately scrambled into Claire's arms.

David yelled, "Get to the lab! Hurry!"

Claire was already running with the little girl wrapped around her like a monkey.

The monster was six feet away, five, four. David thought, "This is it. There's no stopping this thing."

Kevin yelled, "Into the lab! Get into the lab!"

David turned and ran.

The blonde woman stepped shoulder to shoulder with Kevin.

"Are you nuts? Get in the fucking lab!"

"I have to protect my daughter. It's all I can do now."

Kevin looked at him for a heartbeat. "You're an idiot."

"Maybe. I'm also Annette."

He shook his head, lifting his arms, "Alright, Annette. Let's see how brave you really are."

They reloaded, aimed, and prepared to die.

* * *

Jill's heart was beating a mile a minute.

Leon wasn't entirely sure how he stopped it. He was getting turned around in the woods now. He'd lost the damn station in the run with her in his arms. He'd panicked and lost his way.

Some fucking cop he was.

He'd been stumbling, tripping and running through the woods endlessly for at least twenty minutes. Wherever the beasts were, they weren't near here. He hadn't heard anything but his own heavy breathing and the snap of twigs for a long time.

He thought she couldn't be far from the station. The forest had thinned out considerably the last few minutes. Either he was headed back to Raccoon or further out toward the mountains.

He went down on one knee, his foot tangled around a fallen tree trunk and nearly dumped Jill to the ground. She'd stopped talking. She'd stopped talking. He was afraid it was too late. She was going to wake up and eat him. He was just waiting for it.

He cursed, started to rise and heard it. Slow, painfully slow like stalking. Crunch of snow, of dead leaves.

He looked around frantically. It was too dark; he'd lost his flashlight back near the impound lot. Every gnarled, leafless tree looked menacing, deadly.

The steps were getting closer.

He lifted the gun and listened.

Heavy breathing. Panting?

He aimed toward the sound, his heart threatening to burst.

His finger was on the trigger. If he fired and it didn't know he was here, it would certainly come for him. If it already knew and he hesitated, he was dead.

He listened, readjusted his aim, and eased down on the trigger.

"I see you survived."

The voice was soft, deep, familiar.

His muscles felt like liquid. He lowered the gun. "Ada?"

"In the flesh," She tried to keep her voice low like his, a whisper. "Who's that?"

"Jill, how are you here?"

"Bad luck? Something. Is she bit?"

They were moving toward each other, more by sound and instinct than anything else. They faced each other in the dark as he answered, "No. But she's infected. I need the cure."

Ada laughed, dryly," You want a miracle while you're at it?"

He shook his head, "You let me before, Ada. You're here now. Maybe now you help me. What do you say?"

Ada tilted her head at him.

She could just make out the white of his smile. Where was the moon when you needed it?

And she answered, "Why not? I almost shot you until I heard you cuss."

Leon mentally tsked himself. "Great. Death by the f-word. What a way to go."

"A fitting fucking end, for sure," She kept her voice low.

It was easy to be amused apparently when you were, essentially, dead where you stood. He sighed, "Is there anyone else alive?"

"I don't know. I saw you run the wrong way and followed you but I got turned around back there and lost you."

"Yeah. Too bad I'm not Sacagawea."

She snickered. "I think we're close to Raccoon. I was a little farther up when I heard you coming and could see the water tower not too far from here."

"Thank god. I was afraid I was going to die out here."

"You and me both. Let's get back to the city, get to the station and we can go from there," Ada considered him and said, "You should leave her. She's done for, Leon."

"Not yet. I made a promise."

Ada studied him. Brave, a bit stupid maybe, but determined. She had to respect it.

"Ok. Than we're on borrowed time."

"No kidding. Let's move."

They trekked through the forest for a long time with only the comfort of their crunching steps and the whiteness of their breath puffing out before them.

The forest led them to the edge of the park.

Relieved, Leon said, "Thank god. Civilization."

Ada returned, "Or something like it."

They started walking, a little faster than they'd done in the forest.

The station was just a hop, skip and a jump from the park.

She stopped before they reached the gate into the city proper. He was covered in blood; half his face looked melted away, one eye jiggling uselessly in the socket.

Ada lifted the gun to put it down when they heard it.

It was low and close to them.

She aimed over Leon's shoulder and said, "Get down!"

She fired at the same instant he ducked. The bullet took one of the stumbling freaks right through the forehead. It fell backward, arms still scrambling before falling still.

They pushed open the gates and started running.

It got worse the closer they got to the station. The freaks were everywhere. It was like they were gathering in the courtyard for some reason. Why? Was the last living people in the whole world inside the damn RPD?

"Where are we going?"

"To the basement. If anyone one's alive they're down there. It's the safest place in the building."

It was a good point. But it still rang hollow for him. What did she know? More than she was letting on, that was for damn sure.

They ran far the far door when they heard it.

Ada was rolling before she could think about it and something split the air where her head had been, slamming into the wall beside her.

It was horrible, mutated. Her mind tried to wrap around it and it lifted it's head back and roared, "STARZZZZ!"

Leon was grabbing her arm and they were running again. Through the door, down the stairs, with the monster never far behind.

"What does it want!?"

And Leon answered, "...Jill."

Ada cursed, loudly, "Your dead bitch is going to get us killed!"

When they reached the basement, she pushed him toward the door at the opposite end.

"Go!"

"Ada!"

"There's a manhole in the second cell, it'll take you into the sewers! You want to save her life? MOVE FASTER."

"How do you know?"

"I'm F.B.I. I don't have time to explain it now. Trust me or don't...but _move!_ "

He turned and ran. He didn't trust her. But he didn't have much choice on what else to do here. So he listened. He ran. He had to protect Jill.

Ada knew enough to know there was a lab here. She knew enough to know there was a secret entrance. She knew things. Was it so far fetched to think she was FBI?

He gave up and ran with her. They burst through the door into the cell block area just as the monster got to the bottom of the stairs, howling, impossibly fast.

The manhole was open. Someone had gone down before them.

Ada started climbing. She went down three rungs and dropped the rest of the way.

It wasn't far but she hit her knees and rolled, sputtering nasty water as she came up.

There was the sound of gunfire from up above.

She batted water out of her eyes and waited. It was hard to see. The emergency lights had been activated and the world was lit by an ugly red glow.

She yelled, "Leon! Drop the girl!"

Jill came tumbling toward her. Ada brace, caught her, and slung her over her narrow shoulder. With a grunt, she slipped under the water again. Se was heavier than she looked.

And Leon was suddenly falling down the manhole.

He was already pulling her along with him when the first tentacle snaked through the manhole after them.

He grabbed her arm and jerked. She gave him back Jill and he took her without struggling. It was either adrenaline lending him massive strength or he was just stronger than his lean build implied.

They sloshed through the waist high water. She tried not to focus on three floating, bloated bodies of impossibly large spiders that were scattered like lily pads on a pond.

Someone had come through before them, thank god.

There was a rise up ahead and they leaped up together already running down the stairs when they heard the sound of concrete crumbling and the gigantic splash that followed. The ground was stained with tacky blackness that Ada knew was drying blood. Someone had been seriously injured.

She didn't see a body which meant either the spiders had eaten it or they'd managed to go on, maybe mortally wounded but not dead yet.

There wasn't time to check, there wasn't even time to think about it.

They ran.

There was an open door at the end of the hallway. Ada barely had time to see the remains of a still blazing fire before they were leaping over what had to be the largest crocodile she'd ever laid eyes on.

It's head was little more than bits of bone and broken teeth. Someone had made short work of it.

There was a body half crushed underneath it and Ada had a moment to figure she was staring at the bleeder from the hallway before when the monster was bursting through the burning doorway behind them.

Her heart wanted to burst, her ribs ached and still they ran, terror giving their feet wings.

Up over a bridge toward another door.

It was gaining on them. It didn't care about aching lungs, shortness of breath, tired muscles. It was inhuman and they couldn't run forever.

They pushed through the door on the opposite side and kept going.

The hallway was still lit by the ugly red. She felt like she was in a bad spy movie. Like there should be a voice on an intercom somewhere taunting them as they ran.

They hallway split into a T-shape and they veered left, still running.

No time to think, to consider.

There was a door at the end of the hallway. She paused long enough to yank it open and they went through, Ada first, Leon backing up after her.

Terror leaped into her chest as she came through the over side.

They were on a narrow bridge and beneath them, lava rolled and steamed, seeming to beckon her into its burning embrace.

The sound of gunshots had her head coming up. All she could see was the huge back of something that was too large to be human.

Her mind raced for something, anything that could save them. They were trapped between two hulking beasts.

Someone yelled, "Come and get it, you bastard!"

Ada said softly. "We've got one shot."

Leon nodded. "We have to go under it."

"Hard to do that with dead weight. Leave her. It's your last chance."

He shook his head, determined, "I won't."

"than you better pray I get to the lab before you end up a Leon a sandwich."

She was already running. They had one chance.

With someone firing on the monster in front of them, the thing was slow, unsteady. They could time their run and slide. If it didn't step wrong, they'd be able to go right under it, come out the other side.

It was risky but it was their only chance.

Ada closed her eyes, leaped, and started sliding.

Dirty cloth slapped into her face, she felt her dress tear at one shoulder, the pain of heated steel grinding over her flesh. She came to a rolling stop at someone's feet.

She had time to look up at a cop's startled face before he jerked her to her feet.

"STARZZZ!"

Adal scrambled up and lifted her weapon. "I need the vaccine! Now!"

The monster they'd slid under was less than four feet away.

There was pounding coming across the bridge, fast, faster. Jill and Leon were trapped between them. This story ended badly. It was the only way it could.

Leon tucked Jill in his arms and shifted, pressing her into the wall beside the heavy steel bridge. He kept his back to the monster and her tucked to his front. It was the best he could. Either way - he'd done everything he could think of. He whispered, "Sorry, Jill. I'm so sorry."

He thought, "This is it. It's over."

And then something happened. One monster hit another. It was...unexpected.

They didn't like being in the other's way.

The big one in black turned just as the one with the tentacles reached for it, intent on sending it spinning out of it's way.

Kevin yelled, "They're going to fight each other! GO!"

And Leon turned and started running, toward an open doorway at the other end of the bridge. A heavy buzzing signaled its release and a voice beckoned, "Go through that door. Wait there. HURRY!"

The blonde woman was in a room above the lava pit, waving her hands at them. He had to trust her too it seemed. What choice did he have here? They had maybe five minutes before the monster either killed each other or decided to get along for the common good.

He didn't know where they were going but they'd better get there…fast.

He ran through the door. The others disappeared out the far end of the bridge. The door sealed behind him and he was alone in a lab with the tick of a clock.

Jill moaned in his arms. She opened bleary eyes and whispered, "I'm so hungry."

He was alone in a room with a woman turning into a zombie while two monsters tried to kill each other on the only bridge to freedom. He could go back and be in the worst three way of his entire life.

He could wait here to get eaten by a woman he might have once enjoyed eating himself in an entirely different manner.

There was a whole lot of euphemism rolling around in his tried brain.

He should have stayed behind, married Jessica, and become a god damn Sheriff's Deputy in a crappy town. Big hero, big mistake, big fucking mess.

He wasn't about to get laid. And yet?

He was officially screwed.


End file.
